Life Sucks Sometimes

life sucks sometimes, and the music stops
the flow slows and sludges like tar
and blood pounds and throbs in the ear
the eyes and ears search for – something

something hopeful, something positive
the eyes seek beauty – not physical – natural.
the ears listen for soft, understanding, grace.
the body tenses, the soul curves in a cringe

cringe and flinch, cringe and flinch
the human body is reduced to the perpetual
fight or flight – like prey – the body readies
the body craves calm, the mind craves peace

peace and understanding and natural beauty
exist – hidden – in the dos and don’ts of daily decisions
in balance, empathy, and the strength,
not of power or force, but of virtue

virtue is not weakness, virtue is true strength
a worthy goal, a hopeful path – and hidden
from the eyes, the ears, and the body
life sucks sometimes, and the music stops

© L. Rose

You may or may not have noticed that I stopped posting for a while. There’s no particular reason, except life sucks sometimes. I wrote this last night – I have no real idea where I was headed when I wrote the first line, but it morphed into what you see. There is so much going on in the world, and it sucks. There has been talk on National Public Radio/Wisconsin Public Radio about civility and the lack thereof in the human population, so it’s been on my mind a lot. It’s a truth for me that when I am – I’ll say, upset – I stop singing, humming, whistling and listening to music – it’s weird; I go silent. At the top of the notepad page on which I wrote the poem, is the following line: “It’s hard to be hopeful surrounded by the hopeless” – I don’t know if I should laugh at that or cry, but there you have it.

While working on this, I came across this web page:

http://www.virtuesforlife.com/virtues-list/

In my opinion, we are currently crowding the right most column (Transcends), while we should be crowding the left most column (Virtue)