Like learning to ride
With stabilisers removed,
Our world is wobbling,
Caught between losing control
And new equilibrium.
The days are shorter, leaves have fallen, and the temperature is dropping as we transition from autumn to winter. This is not the only change in the air.
(This poem is an attempt at a tanka, a Japanese form, like a haiku, but with lines of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables.)
(16.11.24)
I find myself in that point in between
Caught in the tension, in transition from
One state to another. Belonging to
None.
Restless I tussle, looking for home, but
There is no peace to be found in this place
Nowhere to lay my head and rest. I’m in
Exile.
This no mans land has no alms to share
No favour to give. Is this how water
Feels, not ice nor vapour, but constantly
Flowing?
But rather than despair, perhaps this calls
For patient endurance, believing in
The possibility provided by
Now.
To arrive, you first must travel through this
Junction. You cannot arrive without the
Journey, and so, let’s travel onward in
Hope.
So much of life feels like this at the moment. As we wait for the pandemic to pass, we’re in a state of tension between lockdown and normal, neither one nor the other. Of course, this is not restricted to such large scale fluctuations, but is a state we pass through in a myriad of ways every day.
(09.01.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Ode for the Day 