LOVE, the greatest gift,
Lies disguised astern cold eyes,
Lost alone adrift.

Depression is a flat and empty road,
Gray bitumen against a dull gray sky,
No pit stops to unload a heavy load,
No off-ramps and no stop signs by and by,
A shadow etched upon its lifeless face
From clouds that blot affection from the sun,
Loping alone through endless open space,
Unpurposed hitherto when it begun —

It stretches like a finger pointing forth
To where the earth and heaven press their lips,
A mocking jest to whom may seek its end,
And on its back we mortals weave and wend,
A conga-line of self-absorbent trips
We weigh as gold, yet tally not their worth.

A darkness crept into my waking crypt,
Its tendrils coiled to grip my tortured throat,
Till retching, retching, gurgled on a rote,
Prostrate, held in its clutches, tightly gripped —
No eye perceived this devil as it slipped
From day to blackened day inside to gloat;
An instrument was I to sound its note,
A plaything used, discarded, broken, stripped —
The world became a window; The outdoors
Turned alien; The beast remained inside,
Content to keep the prison of my mind —
From time to time I dared unto the stores,
        But ever on returning I would find
        The nightmare waiting where we both reside.

We are as sand and each is but a grain,
And as the gulls that circle, wings unfurled,
That seem as one to stars above the world,
We are akin to each, yet not the same —
And if one grain is plucked unto the sea,
Do stars proclaim diminished is the beach?
Do gulls bemoan the lesser is their breach
For banquet set ‘tween ocean and the lea?
No, no! Tis brother misses sister lost;
Tis mother mourns a son, or daughter taken.
Young gulls soar still; Old stars gleam on unshaken.
Tis deep amongst the dunes wherein the host
        Does quake as news of twilight whistles by,
        Heedless to one less twinkle in the sky.

I cannot speak for thee, but here I lay
Ensconced inside my home, not struck with fear,
But purposed to entrench within this sphere
Until this growing gloom has passed away —
I dine on steak, with wine; I quaff my scotch,
And pick at nibbles from a fancy plate;
I click to find a comedy to watch,
Averting eyes from news I’ve come to hate —
Was it thus so when plague swept through the land?
When Spanish flu ran rampant and unchained?
Did children sneak to parties parents banned?
Were beaches full of tourists unrestrained?
        I think, compared to them, we have it best,
        And time shall ease our sorrows with her zest.

Winds from the mountain sail in ‘cross the sea,
Tree tops are whistling a wild melody;
Time, the old fiddler, has struck up his bow
As Summer flees south with the waning Sun’s glow —

Lock up the windows and seal all the doors,
A red mist is rising on these hallowed shores;
Shelves full to bursting and no one let in,
A storm is a-looming about to begin —

Footprints still rest in the places we’ve been,
Faltering short of new pastures unseen;
Untrodden pathways lead yonder away,
Unto an horizon, unto a new day —

Mist hides the morrow that lingers in wait
To greet weary travellers who pass by its gate;
Night is the shadow that cloaks all in fear,
Dawn is the beacon to beckon light near —

Out from the mist, from the dark, shall arise
A halo of sunlight to brighten the skies;
Sunrise and sunset shall be bookends, no more,
For days long since borrowed, and days still in store.

Some scars never heal —
Like dormant snow-capped pathways,
Secrets to conceal.