It’s easy to believe:
that this is it
it’s all over.

Optimism foolish,
and hope a meager meal.
Seeing a pattern of life defeated:
prevailing winds all sailed.

Much harder is the challenge
to recover, to rebuild
to end the cycled brooding
where harvests never yield.

And it surely doesn’t help
that complexity seems fraught
little nooks and crannies
that only seem to rot.

Yes, simplicity is charming
like an easy winning smile.
It can seem a deft decision
to prune away denial.

But shutting off and shutting down
just mimes an early death,
barely meeting definition,
of fire taking breath.

And it would also be mistaken:
to paint a happy-lucky wash
grimness has its uses
to avoid perspective lost.

Oh, but it’s overwhelming
the grinding of this wheel
scraping skin and breaking backs
under boots of steel.

Which is all the reason
to keep the bridges open
to bind and knit the friendships
that soothe us when we’re swollen.

Because there are no saviors
no single points of success or failure
instead its threes and fours of us
that move this stubborn glacier.

No, it’s not quite the end
not this partial apocalyptic;
we humans still have centuries
despite naysayed insistence.

Hope is still the worthwhile choice
with meaningful resistance
neighbors helping neighbors
mutually aided persistence.