The Last Day of the Year. See Postscript.
Poem © 2021 by Joyce Mason
The most uncomfortable place I have ever lived
is in-between.
It’s that vast, noiseless wasteland that forces us
to sit in the waiting room of our next life,
confronted by nothing but silence.
There’s no clue
of what it’s all about,
just a bleak gray-and-white
landscape,
the fuzzy, gritty old TV static after all the shows
have signed off for the night.
I can almost see the test pattern.
Yet I know this tremendously boring
and unstimulating gray zone is the laboratory
of new life.
It’s a beaker, an incubator, a womb.
It is the unseen vessel of Everything That Comes Next.
It is depressing at face value.
It’s just purgatory,
dues we have to pay
before all sunshine and color break loose
and we are off to chase another rainbow.
It’s why suicide and even lesser forms of giving up
are so questionable.
You might miss something.
~~~
Photo Credit: | Dreamstime.com
Postscript: Today is one of the many “endbeginnings” we all experience. For most of us, the in-between is a very uncomfortable place. We live there more than ever with the changes a pandemic and our collective reaction to it has leaked into every-day living. We hardly know how today is going to work out, so it’s hard to picture tomorrow. I have been reading up on the psychological effects of Covid, and they are significant. Paraphrasing one article I read, no one is equipped to cope with such an extended period of stress. Quite literally much of the world is suffering from PTSD due to the upset to all our routines, commerce and relationships—just to name a few affected aspects of life.
While this is not a rosy picture, when we can understand these in-between places for what they are, knowing they are part of a larger process will hopefully carry you to the next place that feels safe and secure. If my poem touches even one person and helps them put this strange place in perspective, I will have ended the year on an up-note. Writing it sure helped me.
No comments:
Post a Comment