Poetry Corner

Coming to Terms

“You’ll come to terms with the illness one day”

So they say

At first I believed them. 

“Acceptance is the only route

Go for the low hanging fruit

Contemplate, meditate”

“And then…?

Oh then, well…er

Simply wait.

I did.

One year, two years

Three and four

Getting more and more unsure

What it is I’m waiting for.

Five six seven, eight nine ten

By then things were not so zen.

And then came year eleven

With which nothing rhymes. 

And guess what? It was time.

And then it came.

Freshness born from heavy rain

All the tears had in a way

Formed their very own cliché

Which itself was washed away

Suddenly.

[I thought by then

that I had grown a

 shell,

But in busy Barcelona 

it hit me hard as hell

At a session full of passion. Subject: creativity]

Was it an epiphany?

Or something fleeting, temporary

Don’t know. Can’t know. Possibly…

It comes through hearing others’ verse

Some sublime some rather worse

For wear

Who cares. It moves me

Proves to me

That others in a similar state 

Somehow manage to relate

To the illness without fury, bitterness or worse.

They don’t think it a curse

So nor should I.

And so it goes. 

And so…

I try.

By Gillian Lacey - Solymar