Veronica Shoffstall
After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn.
Diagnosis
We multiply diseases for delight,
invent a shameful want, a horrid doubt,
luxuriate in license, feed on night,
make inward bedlam -- and will not
come out
Why should we? Stripped of subtle
complication,
who could regard the sun except with fear?
This is our shelter against contemplation,
our only refuge from the plain and clear.
Who would crawl out from under
the obscure
to stand defenseless in the sunny air?
No terror of obliquity so sure
as the most shining terror of despair
to know how simple is our deepest need,
how sharp, and how impossible to feed.
Marcia Lee Anderson
invent a shameful want, a horrid doubt,
luxuriate in license, feed on night,
make inward bedlam -- and will not
come out
Why should we? Stripped of subtle
complication,
who could regard the sun except with fear?
This is our shelter against contemplation,
our only refuge from the plain and clear.
Who would crawl out from under
the obscure
to stand defenseless in the sunny air?
No terror of obliquity so sure
as the most shining terror of despair
to know how simple is our deepest need,
how sharp, and how impossible to feed.
Marcia Lee Anderson
