Falling

I suspect we all have moments, times in our lives, when we stumble, we fall, tripping, I suspect, over something as simple as reality.  Life is the confluence of pleasure and pain, success and failure, hope and despair and while we may aspire to be happy, to feel safe, to feel a sense of pride in who we are and what we are a part of, we are, at times, faced with the reality that life is not always gentle, times are not always good, and people are not always kind and caring.  In fact, the grim reality is – people can be downright despicable, and times can be unbearably depressing.

Perhaps, as a poet who seeks to understand things through the passion of the poem, I become more susceptible to the grim reality of what is, the reality the poem cannot dispel.  The poem, the words I write, cannot feed the hungry, house the homeless, bring back the lives that have been taken in the name of “cleansing,” alleviate suffering or bind the festering wounds that plague our bodies and souls.

We are living in times that challenge us to find something within us that is stronger, more enduring than the truth of the times we are living in.  I guess that “something” is hope – trust that the best of us will somehow, some way, someday soon, vanquish the worst of us…

FALLING
There is something
I know
discovered in
the circumstance of
falling
I survive
the fall
bones           broken
bruised    bloodied
skin healing
like sleepy eyes
something
about impact
confronting
rock
rough    scraggy
stones wounding
like hurled curses      a reminder
pain comes in
all sizes
forced to bend    betray
the frailty
of caring
precariously alive
daring to
survive…

…there are things
I know
learned
from years of falling
we do not fall
alone
stones do not
concede
endure
the impact
of infinite bodies   sturdy enough
to birth a village
of mangled
bones

…we are
shattered     bleed
weep
but do not die
fierce
the fervor of survivors
reminded
to indulge
in something
simple
as the cure of
daring
I fall
as though falling
is a call
to rise
clothed in the lace of
scars
declare myself
abiding
temporary victim of stone
eternally
the stuff of stars…