Prisoner in the mind,
With fears and doubts rampantly raging,
Screams echoing in the tumbling darkness
As I grope and claw for Light,
For breath,
For the hope I once held in my hands.
Captive to a thousand harbingers of uncertainty,
Shaking and trembling in the void that darkly surrounds,
Devouring my soul.
Asking,
Waiting,
Stubbornly refusing to surrender to the harrowing blackness.
Faith stands.
Faith waits.
Faith holds her fragile breath and stares into the starless sky,
Seeing only light,
Luminous, streaming, sparkling light,
In gossamer tangles and silken pools that glimmer radiantly,
Filling the heart and reaching outward
Drawing in the barren void
To embrace and renew.
.
Although it is not often easy, Faith, Belief, and Determination are more often than not a choice. Something we must willingly and diligently decide upon each day. It’s entirely up to us whether we face the dimness of this world with a melancholic view and allow its darkness to consume us, or we stand against the rising currents of anger, hatred, and violence to seek light, beauty, and truth.

This poem puts this choice into lyrical reality and shows, through the choices of the words and phrases I used, how the choice very often creates its own illumination and inspiration.

Each day we face challenges. The darkness of this world is devouring and seeks to extinguish the light within us. Darkness seeks darkness. Look around. See how intolerance breeds anger and hatred. How greed and avarice spawn deceit; how apathy produces violence. It’s not simply a metaphor, it happens every day.

Those of us who choose to walk in the Light rather than the Darkness are not only the harbingers of kindness and compassion, we are truly the light of the world. He wasn’t joking. Our light may be only a single candle flickering in the void, but when I shine my light outward into the dimness, and you shine yours, and he shines his, and she shines hers, and they theirs, suddenly a warm ruddy glow shimmers in the murk. And we all know what happens when a light is shone in the dark of night.

It draws others to it, which is the entire point of the metaphor He spoke….and this verse.

Morgan

Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash