Hope and despair.
They do not last.
I know that now.
Depressions come
And go.
And right thoughts feed,
then starve,
like bees on marjoram.
How the bees flock
so briskly at their work,
productive on the pink,
buzzing with intent,
bound to necessity!
So good, so true.
But when the shadows
drop their veil,
and the earth chills,
and the cold, silent
bat's wing of death
brushes the herb garden,
they vanish suddenly,
invisibly,
into the dark gap
between two rays of sun.
7 comments:
Thank goodness for bats. I love them. But I did not always understand that. Nor did I understand the need for darkness, and shadows, even despair, and that it would not last.
You know? There are some really good things about getting older. Really good. Like knowing that what we have today will likely not be what we have tomorrow.
This is a sweet bittersweet meditation.
wow..yours? I really like it.
"Hope and despair. They do not last." But the first can be rekindled and reclaimed…and the other recognized as the false destroyer, a dark light seeking to lead us down an ever darkening path and into an ultimately lightless abyss, where our lives seem as hollow and empty as the void around us. Mankind's great gift is that he is not bound to wallow in this dispair; depressions are ours to denounce and drive away—and all it takes is a single glimmer of hope to start the recovery process.
Perhaps the bees understand this instinctively, which is why they flee toward the light.
A fine and honest poem, wonderfully rendered.
Beautiful Robert. And there is a bit of peripheral light in the dark gap between rays ... if we cannot see it, hopefully we can feel it. If we cannot feel it, hopefully we can remember that it exists and that with time we will access it again.
So evident that this comes from your heart.
A wonderful, beautifully rendered poem, Robert, Wonderful imagery about the bees and their life cycles, but I keep coming back to those opening words reminding us that neither hope nor despair lasts. All things pass, don't they? And that is both our sadness and our eternal hope.
Good to see your poetry again. Thank you for posting this.
The image of the two rays of sun and the dark gap between them where the bees vanish is quite astonishing.
"Everything passes, everything changes."
Thanks for your responses to this poem.
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