Hiding in Broad Daylight

When the Bastille Day fireworks go off
I will not wonder why my dog hides from them,
in a narrow space underneath my bed.

I am one of many who rarely finds that safe distance
from the headlines in the national press
that explode everyday over my head,
telling me about stuff about which
I cannot change the course or nature of.

The difference between me and my dog
is that he hides once a year from the fireworks;
I hide everyday I seek to hide in broad daylight.

But within me and outside of me I still seek
to change daily that which really will change.   

Changing Reasons

Recently I helped a friend through a time of need.
His generosity to me had always gone as uncounted
as the times we have made each other laugh.
But under pressure to care for another
I could not share with close friends
what I was pulling myself through.
I stood. I served. Inside I quietly fell apart.
From the outside in I propped myself up
as I gave the support daily that I had to.

I said nothing about it until it was all over.
I understand how one silence follows another,
but I feel shrunk by how I froze inside
-which was how the silence first started.

Life

is what puts the fun into funerals.

Laughter And Tears

Jindra says 'Solemnity is the armour of fools',
but the truest fools will be solemn,
for being unable to laugh with what made them foolish.
Other people have left them drained.
Many melancholics find themselves best
through staring into a glass darkly.
The better to know that laughter
from bitter, isolating, humour is strong armour in life.
They find this truth most acutely
when they are caught short and pushed into the spotlight.