We are not tempted to feel sorry for you but to wish that your life situation might tighten its screws on you and force you to let what resides in you come out, might begin that more rigorous examination that is not satisfied with chatter and witticism.
—Soren Kierkegaard
During such destabilizing moments, when our mettle is tested, we must reassess… everything. It takes discipline and focus to recover our balance.
Poetry, I find helps — reading and writing it. Below, is a poem that I wrote after such an inner disturbance.
Visceral
The watering holes are contaminated
animals stagger, wounded and wounding
strangling fierce and bewildered keening -
there is word of a stranger in the village
spreading like lengthening shadows
spilling into once safe, sunlit spaces
splotchy-blotchy, blemishing news
as expected as a natural disaster
all is wet with fear of the unknown
sky and earth quake and thunder
survival simplified to a difficult equation
under the dictate: overcome or perish
transcendence has become a necessity
no time for tears or breathless incredulity
time to summon powers once bragged of
submit to be tested as man and superman.