“You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.’ He paused, considering what he had just said. ‘Yes’, he repeated. ‘In the end, it’s all a question of balance.”
~ Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)
What to do, what to do, what to do?
Beneath the veneer
of calm and calculated actions
of calm and calculated actions
lay the desolate turbid waters
of despair and banished dreams.
Unanswered questions echo
through forsaken canyons of loneliness,
while impending fate looms on the horizon
while impending fate looms on the horizon
like the mist that cloaks the moors.
Frozen compass needle paralyzed to inaction;
energies shunted through fading hopes,
disappointments linger
while wounded faith writhes on the floor.
Wall edges fall under scrutiny
in vain attempts to locate
the cracks in the seams
of this proverbial box.
What is this stuff we reach for,
when we’re digging deep,
and how do we stoke the embers
when they’ve faded?
Where exactly is this self created hell,
and why do we dwell here;
why is this our choosing?
these places we’ve all seen.
A question of balance.
Copyright © Henri Ferguson 2003
All rights reserved.
Author notes
Life’s changes and their concomitant trials are the bumps in the proverbial road of life. Thinking outside of the box, and choosing our own reality, are truisms that, although eloquent and steeped in wisdom, can sound painfully glib and hollow when we find ourselves consumed by despair. I have been able to transmute these feelings into verse, which is not always an answer but a catharsis to be sure when seeking terra firma in a question of balance.
Written April 12th, 2003
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