Wisdom of Seasons – Poetry doesn’t just happen, it forms over time, much like a garden, it throws off what doesn’t work and strengthens what does and you have a collection of blooms that seem to appear almost magically in the spring-but so much that is unseen occurs above and beneath the soil.
I started writing this because of the current date, it is almost 47 years ago that my father died, he was 35. For 47 years my family has been reliving this Labor Day weekend in our minds.
Do you ever look back on things that have happened in your life and wonder how you got through? It feels like a different life and a different person and for all purposes both are true.
It is comforting to me, at this age, to realize the things you can not fathom getting through are only because you are not the person you would be if you had to face the worst of days. We become, slowly and painfully, into the people that can handle the things we are thrust into.
Fear is only the in-between persona that hangs on to safety and peace. Human beings are a lot more strong and resilient than we would think. We are capable of getting through so much more than we can fathom.
I was walking the dog today and noticed the brown grass with the last remnants of green fighting for control, summer is losing its battle, the casualties are the dried up leaves and shriveled up grasses and yet a breeze softens the feeling of loss.
Autumn is a time of ending but it’s also a time of renewal, a time to gather the harvest of what we’ve learned the previous season and improve and plan for the next one. We are taught by nature every day, how to live, how to persevere, how to find peace and contentment unfortunately in many of us the profound riddles are lost.
This weekend, I’ve been looking forward to a break, a reboot of sorts-three days to get my house in order literally. After a full summer of heat, my air conditioning quits – the first tendency is to think why now? Why this weekend?
The answer, nothing happens in the time you think it should. I have stopped and thought this weekend about life, about my dad, about life and all the darker moments of it and if you live life as if it were a movie where the plot is continuously playing out and you are an audience as well as a performer, patient for cues and eager to participate, everything works as it should.
Even the darkest most horrible things can bring greatness, not only for those affected by the trauma but the lessons it teaches those who watch the movie play out.
Sit back, relax, even if the air conditioning quits working, even if a loved one finds the end of their journey, search for the plot, the parable, the wisdom you can take and grieve as you will and find joy in the simplest of things. Find Your Aggressive Happiness.
An Ode to the Cold Brown Earth
For forty seven years, the earth has kept quiet,
only a brief story on a stone will hint of anything
but the family remembers, and they’ll carry that moment
with them
even as the stubborn earth never gives up its prize
I brought my son to see you last year,
the earth was green, the trees were quiet
and the wound
heals like so many autumns gone
The hole was not kind
nor just
it only opened up and swallowed
all of us
and now 47 years gone
how many wisdoms you taught
how many words forged
I can’t imagine it now, I don’t want to
but time is kind
you were never truly in the earth
instead, we’ve carried you inside
PS. What is Aggressive Happiness?
It comes in those moments when we need happiness
but there is no logical place for happiness. It is something we choose to find, to live despite our situation.
It is not easy, even at times it seems almost impossible but it is there if you seek it. Even at the darkest of autumn, leaves give up all their most beautiful colors-concentrate on the beauty and richness of the earth and the forest not on the fact that soon the trees will all be bare, concentrate on the cool breeze not on the cruel winds of winter-you will find a new strength when it is time.
That is Aggressive Happiness, it is intentional, never passive, it is defiant and refuses to bend to circumstance. There are many places to find it, the next posts will give some ideas and paths to it.
For a Similar Article on Dealing with Stresses
For the Winter Doldrums