Tag: poetry

Every Day Serenity

Serenity every day,
I pray from the frayed edges
chaos rattling, pains howling

Laundry waits in piles
of incompletion – like my life –
demands eroding worth

Hush! I scold the voices
of discontent, the discord
exhausting – I am trying!

Serenity! I pray,
my hands are burdened,
my psyche losing ground

I stop and close my eyes
follow breath in and out
will myself to calm

Serenity steps in –
a moment of respite
available every day.

(Image my own)

Sufficiency

Disability corners me
twixt two directions –
the hurried rush
of ambition’s call
and the gentle nudge
of wisdom settling

Confined to four rooms
I am distanced from –
invisible to –
the weekend warriors
whose self-satisfied grimaces
race by my window

I remember that push –
not enough hours to the day
not enough money to succeed
never thin enough, fit enough
always grasping for more…

Legless and exhausted,
I am disqualified
from competing,
immersed in retrospection,
luxuriating in perspective –

I’ve always had, indeed,
continue to have
everything I need:
a home I can navigate,
the endless beauty of nature
and the care of loved ones.

Abundance, I’ve discovered, is attitude:
recognition and acceptance
that life is sufficiency

(I’ve derived this poem from a post by the same name, dated October 2014.
At the time, I was five months into the losses that were Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
Image my own)

I Dance

Forgive the dance –
it’s what I do –
step forward,
slide back,
shuffle, then
lose the rhythm
and start again.

Reaching forward
heart securely tucked,
something embedded –
cellular perhaps –
invites the struggle

and so, I dance –
yesterday, a warrior
today the fool
tomorrow only knows

multi-faceted,
roughly cut,
a gem
of an undefined hue
I will always try again.

(Poem first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II, entitled “Forgive The Dance”, October, 2019. Image my own.)