I could tell you to breathe,
To grit and push
To enlighten and endure
And enunciate the edges
While the sun bounces off the peninsula,
Or the way one word can soften the harsh corners.
It’s nothing to pull up that reading list
Of Thomas Moore and Oprah and two kinds of Grahams,
For a snap of a moment to guide you to the stillest point
where facts and futures reduce to one sentence, maybe two,
Then fall into a portal or a mantra, and please, an explanation, finally,
that shows how empty gets filled,
how questions stop confusing,
please something to assure that acceptance reigns and destiny divines.
Assures…
For a time.
It’s as simple as you wish it to be
For a time.
But I kid you not, lest it’s best you know:
The road’s rocky, the trip’s tricky,
The ache is real.
The lump in the shower, the call at midnight, the pinkest slip?
Who said it: We grow, we grow. stronger each time?
Perhaps, and so what?
The drips of recovery can deplete
And when that happens you might stop being sure.
And what about that: when you toss your hopes to hell?
What then? When time and years alter hope, meld it into something
That will rend your heart as surely as the sun sets and rises?
Children are kidnapped, for god sakes.
Or that first betrayal! In time it will heal: time is the medicine of destiny;
But never enough. There is no enough in such a matter.
But wait:
You can lose.
You can let fate wrestle you down
And decide to lose,
Right there on the mat of goals and wishes.
It might look dire,
To have packed your suitcase and parachute only to leave them both
at a bus stop to nowhere;
to venture off with a faith that looks like zany circles
not reassuring lines.
But there is a but.
When there are no answers
The questions don’t matter nearly as much.
And when you stop questioning
You just might find
Your own brand of astonishment,
Waiting and ready
To carry you home.
Karen Jasper
Feb. 2012
