Midnight Introspection

Sometimes I wish that I was brave enough to throw off 

all the boundaries I’ve known since I was born, 

the noble expectations lurking, nimbly hidden there 

among the do’s and don'ts, the just-because-it’s-rights 

or that-would-be-bad-forms. Or what about the mirror 

of the Word of God that’s miraculously free of streaks 

some days but mostly, since my hands are soiled, is smudged. 

I’m judged as wacky by a world who could not possibly perceive 

my deepest needs and wants, the things I crave to see 

become reality. Freely I confess I’m judged more harshly 

by my inner inclinations interrupting, finding fault 

because I hesitate to face the mist alone, to step out of my comfort zone,

cocoon of who I think that I should be, must be, who I am 

that someone else decided long ago. Shadowed 

by those braver few I love who’ve forged new lives in steel 

and looking at them from the outside how they seem 

to thrive, surviving all the drama they created 

while I’m waiting here, just sitting with a pile of gold 

that glistens but is soft and therefore useless as a sword. 

Even more of those I see seem equally uneasy but 

still they choose to take a chance and push parameters 

to reinvent their universe at will. I wanted to believe 

the year before had whispered promises of change. 

I thought I heard them once or twice upon the breeze but no. 

The hope was just a self-inflicted wound that’s healing as we speak, 

the scar serving as reminder every day that almost all 

I ache for’s just beyond my reach and ever will be thus. 

The truth is sometimes cold but it’s enough. And when I light 

the match and when you gently blow upon the embers of my dreams 

the fire’s as blazing hot as it is short-lived. But if I’m honest – 

and why wouldn’t I be honest, raised by southern saints – 

I wonder if the wine I drank tonight’s responsible 

for all this introspection? Or if it was the key to open up 

the golden box inside my heart and hold it up, 

examining the what ifs and the maybe sos 

that sparkle even as the glowing coals that are my dreams 

grow dim and I am drifting off to sleep once more.

Freedom

The pavement's been resurfaced
and repaired so many times without
a clue that deep below it are the roots
of something anyone would think
quite insignificant, of no real consequence
until it pushes up again, through sand
and gravel and the tar until it finds the
tiniest of openings and fiercely tackles
it until the window of fresh opportunity
becomes a crack, the crack becomes a door
back to the sky beneath a sun the little
plant -- though withered, covered up and
starved of rainfall -- knew that it would
find once more. So patiently it deals
with challenge and adjustments, knowing
there will never be a world in which its
perseverance fails, that there will never
be a world without the sun.

(c) 2020 Ellen Gillette

A Chapter Starts

http://www.wheretowillie.com/
"Under a Full Moon"
by William Woodward

Full moon, good omen in the sky
as one more chapter in my life begins.
Most chapters are, I find, the
open-ended kind that could go on
and on until the day your die. (Some
chapters, that is what you want. Not all.)
It happens that this one is finite,
of the sort you think about like...
even if it's bad, it  only lasts a day,
or week, or year, and you can get
through anything for just a day or
week, or year...but I expect,
anticipate, that when this nine-week
chapter ends, with all its challenges
and mental stretching, I will sigh,
not from relief so much as wondering
what I will do with so much time.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015