Some lives

 

Some lives, arduous, indocile, unbridled,
need not be shunned but embraced –
they show where strength can be found
– when all one sees is woe and pain –

These lives had to trudge through deserts
and snows and tundras, so now they know
how to balance a mountain at arms’ length
and not yield under the impossible weight
– how to bend the darkness to find the light –
– how to cradle a pulsar, tame it, and love it –

These lives are wont to carry heavy things
– hearts, breathing, silence, boots –
they know what to do with the dark
– fold it like an origami – dense like
ten hundred thousand suns –
– seemingly effortlessly yet
their shoulders bent and their gaze away –
– paperfold firmly set on their bedside table
glowing shadow in the unlit room –
– a constant vigil so it doesn’t unfold –

These lives hold the maps to emptiness
– had to find paths through unmarked lands –
feeling their way with outstretched hands
– unsure of step and yet adamant on
learning how to harness the darkness –

Those sheer voyagers of the soul
pay no heed to us who carry joy
like a handbasket on a Sunday morn
– they carry chagrin like a moving globe –
– thus we may sit still, unmindful, on the grass
unsuspecting of the pain we’re spared –

A knowing nod, an intent handshake
would lighten their selfless toil
– if only a little for a little while –
for carrying what we couldn’t has a toll
which would make our joy trivial
and our issues embarrassing

in the face of some lives.