Wednesday 5 February 2014

Take a walk when the rain is gone

Take a walk when the rain is gone,
when the clouds hang uncertainly in the sky,
and the trees stand with bowed heads.
Soon the sun will return
and with a gentle hand
lift their faces up to him.
The earth breathes easily:
damp, challenged, refreshed,
and the evening sky speaks to me of heaven.

All around me is beauty born again and again.
When I am faced with my own frailty,
knowing this brings me some peace.
I shall have to die one day,
but the sky, the earth will thrill, will soothe other hearts.

I wish you shelter from the storm.
A warm mug of coffee, clasped in your palm.
Someone to love you, nestled
in the crook of your arm.
These are the things I wish for
you and everyman.

But may you also be content
to bear the brunt of a storm
or the dull dry weight of a windless day.
To take the bad for the good that may follow,
the hard that will with time be easy,
the cruel that might teach you to be kind.
May you take from life what you can.
Laughter and sunshine, thunderstorms and tears.

#

This poem was inspired about 25 years ago, by Daniel Day Lewis (yes, "Lincoln", and no, I don't actually know him personally). On my first and only and absolutely fabulous holiday to London, my friend Akila took me to the National Theatre to see Shakespeare's Hamlet. Lewis played the title role. He was brilliant. He BURNED. And then two days later, it appears, he burnt out:  collapsing on stage and having to retire to recover. When I heard about this, I felt such pain, huge waves of it. I'm still not exactly sure why. And then I sat down and wrote this poem.

P.S. This is a reworking of the original (from Dec 13th, 1989!), that I did tonight.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I seldom leave comments, but i did some searching and wound
up here "Take a walk when the rain is gone". And I actually do have
some questions for you if it's allright. Is it just me or does it seem like a few of the responses come across
as if they are written by brain dead people?
:-P And, if you are writing on other social sites, I
would like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post.
Could you make a list of all of your community sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed,
or linkedin profile?

Here is my web page :: Relationships

Without Shadow said...

It's just you. LOL

Brain-dead people do not usually visit my site. Brain-challenged, maybe. Occasionally spammers will post bizarre comments mostly about sex or building renovations but I gently delete those before they appear on my blog although in general I am very kind and understanding towards the brain-challenged, they too are children of the universe and have a right to be here, just as long as they stay in my spam folder.

Without Shadow said...

Oh, I don't really post anything different on other social media, but I have an Art Earth Ink Soul page on Facebook, am "selfpropelled" on Twitter, and have not yet figured out what LinkedIn is, or how to use it.