Secret Weapons in the Midst of Morning.

Your voice is hoarse.
A normal occurance,
not unlike the padding down the stairs
to make coffee. Strong.
Let the cats out.
Let yourself out.

The diner is full of strangers this morning.
They live in their own little world, talking loud
as if the rest of us weren’t there
to hear their secrets and politics.
It’s an odd place, private and public.
Some days you are drawn into conversations.
Other days, like today, you are a stranger
at his regular table.

It is a good life, mine. Simpler
than I would have believed possible
a decade and a half ago. Less public,
deeper in relationships. Even alone in the diner,
you feel the richness as they bring you your regular,
steaming hot. As the waitresses ask
about your art and your wife, knowing neither,
but knowing their importance to me.
Oh yes, a rich life.

The depression lingers. It has no respect
for all the good things, constantly whispering
in your bones, Constantly causing you to talk
, to yourself, to tell truth in a deft repartee
giving as good as you get like a 1950’s movie.
Generally I am the cleverer of the two,
even wounded.

I have a secret weapon, and they, the demons
under the bed, fall for it every time.
A God who listens. Who lends me just enough
strength that I never fall into the night. The ability
to know, not merely feel, A God so forgiving
that even if the demons of my depression were truthful
(and they are not), I need not worry.
All is forgiven.

About this poem

Any regular readers know I fight depression, the operative word being fight, not suffer. You may also know I am a part time Methodist minister, and that Methodism is a faith of grace, love and acceptance. And that I am a part time artist. And that I spend most of my early morning in a local diner.

At times all those things come together and I preach to myself. Lord knows I need it.

The picture is of an entryway we don’t use in our church.

Tom