An Instrument for Weathering the Storm
What a time to be alive!
Did you read that with joy?
With excitement?
With wonder and amazement and righteous vindication?
Or did you read it with sarcasm?
Or perhaps bewilderment?
Or with a bone-weary sadness?
What a time to be alive!
A time of fear.
Of families struggling, seeking safety.
Of a people divided, seeking separation.
A time of turmoil.
Of power shifting and fortunes rising.
Of friendships breaking and purpose dying.
What a time to be alive!
To be victorious!
To be avenged!
To be drunk on the potential for our greatness!
To be introspective.
To be renewed.
To be as the roots of the willow tree: reaching towards each other with a great tenacity to live.
What a time to be alive!
Authors note: I usually provide an audio track for the “instruments” series, because I feel that it greatly enhances the emotional impact of the piece. However, in this case, the piece relies on you, the reader, to bring your own emotional state to the piece. Were I to read it, then my interpretation would color your own.
That said, I invite you to leave a comment describing the effect reading this poem had on you. What disrupted you? What shifted in you? What was reinforced?
Beautiful is the paradox of pain and possibility.
Brilliant. And something I needed it right now. We worked together tangentially at Microsoft.