Coal, Diamonds and Dice

Deep breath.
You start again.
Again.

I am good at it, it seems,
but I wish it had not been
so often necessary.

I don’t know how you people do it.
All those emotions fired at you each day
from the machine gun of life

and you just handle them, matrix like.
FIle this. Ignore that. Allow yourself to feel
this one without exploding.

To say I admire normal is an understatement.
It grows old feeling always behind
on the edge of overwhelmed.
Things get lost. I am often late
to the party.

But then, the few I capture
are exquisite. Diamonds more than coal.
Colors and light, few as they are,
they shine bright.

About this poem

I am not sure what is going on, but this past week I have started to write about “X” and it has come out “Y”. Today is another of those.

The past couple of years has been a stutterstep of being halted in my tracks by health and beginning again.

I am a firm believer that God has a plan for us, but sometimes, I have to admit, it feels like giant crapshoot. Thus, the dice, even if they aren’t mentioned verbally.

I went to a play called “Next to Normal” with my wife and son this weekend, a musical based on emotional illness and its effects on families. It was good, but it is still haunting me a little, vague ghosts on the edge of my periphery.

The picture was taken at an antique shop in Cambridge, NY.

Dancing anyway,

Tom