The hard rind – redux

Collection

Out of the button-down regimen
of my daily life, I scavenge
fragments of wonder,
shards of joy in brilliant
prism colours,
pools of satisfaction,
warm and comfortable
as old woolen slippers.

Laughter is a bank account
to which I make deposits
every chance I get –

and hope
I store in corners, on windowsills,
under rugs, on top of the refrigerator,

all hoarded against the lean days
inevitably to come, when depression
groans through my bones, wailing,
and intractable miseries squall
urgent and unruly as a litter of piglets
squabbling at the sow’s teats.

At times like these,
I suck the hard rind,
which gives no pleasure,
and does not nourish.

Ahh, the hard rind.  No friend of mine, for sure – but nevertheless familiar as the nose on my face.   And here you are again, blowing through me like the icy winds of winter.  Always uninvited, forever unwelcome, reappearing whenever  I begin to relax and think myself finally free of your cold breath across my cheeks and the chill grey fog of your embrace.

Is this the price I pay for seeking, always, the warmth and enchantment of sunlight pouring through my morning window, lighting the dark corners of my life?  Or for dancing in my dreams across  meadows and glades aglow with faerie radiance?   All the more fool then, I, for thinking this to be the sum of my truth!

Hard words.  Hard rind.   And really, only another sign of the times.

I set my mind into the posture of meditation.  Let this be a time of inwardness, of reflection.  I wait.  This too shall pass.  My spirit, like the seed tucked into the soil, strains upward toward its true home, refusing to allow itself to be defined by depression.  As spring follows winter, the sunlight will return.   And life goes on.

Namaste,
Susannah