…And the Sun is Shining Once More

The sorrows that once assailed us and held us in place
Are now the sorrows of yesterday
Replaced as such
With the troubles and worries of today.

We have woken so many days
Doubtful of ourselves,
Fearful of the challenges we know we face
And ever more fearful of those we do not,
But have come to expect,
As we are creatures of patterned stories.

We have read the poetry
On the rising and setting of the sun,
On the flow of the river
And on the falling and rebirth of the maple leaves,
But we do not always remember
Or we reject this notion, saying
“This is only coincidence and does not speak to my life.”

Yet we remain,
Despite the ample availability of
Plastic shopping bags and zip ties,
Running bath water and clock radios,
Ropes with knots tied to strong wooden beams.

Is this for fear of what comes next?

Do we persist only as
A survival instinct,
As my mind so often tells me when the darkness begins to take hold,
Each breathe only an unavoidable sorrow,
A micro mirror image of the larger problems which plague the mind day in and day out?

These lies
Are a product not of the darkness itself,
But of our interpretation thereof;
For we know full well
That what we see in the darkness
Has never been a true representation of what is really there.

Walks at night elicit
Fear of what might attack from the shadows,
A trained response,
Precious as it is for surviving the world with so many sharp teeth and voracious appetites,
But quite inaccurate once the threat is no longer so,
Once movement and contrast are replaced with,
Color and vivid detail,
Once a new day has begun,
And the sun is shining once more.