I wish you could

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