Back to happi-numb, A short poem

 

A short poem brought to me by Ontario’s winter wind 

Painting : 

“Hope” by George Frederic Watts (1886)

Music:

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2

“Back to happi-numb”

And I choose fear not love 

Resign not fight 

Sunny plains lie beyond the final bends of this dark valley.

And yet, I choose the darkness.

My knees were bruised by stones,

My feet wounded on the jagged paths,

My bones compressed

The green meadows, beyond the grasp of winter,

Await the touch of my bare feet.

But I choose to remain in the 

frozen caves.

The warmest embraces,

The kindest smiles,

The sincerest clasp of friendly hands

Await me with joy in the future.

Yet I choose solitude.

How can I believe in the eruption of my warm breaths,

Against the icy winds of life?

Perhaps it is easy to forget

That breaths are meant to be warm,

That humans are warm-blooded mammals,

Not cold-blooded reptiles,

With slow hearts and thickened skins.

I choose to forget

That the Ice age is long past gone 

Doubt lingers:

Will hands ever meet?

Will roads ever cross?

Fear creeps in.

And I choose to resign.

As inevitable as when mom cried

And when dad gave up

In a world that never taught us

How to bravely love the rebel in us,

How to keep your arms down

I choose fear not love.

Beside my feet, 

From the face of an unborn love—fallen and still—

Blood turns to ice,

Yes, I choose fear not love

Farid, Jan 25, 2025