sandy truth

Sandy truth

The chaos licks at the edges of the golden hour,
whispers darkness, gathering,
threatens the cold of deep chasms,
refuses to hear about stars just
space between them,
and the remoteness of this outpost,
the isolation of my heart

which, thundering as it does,
as it can,
useless and loud,
helpfully filling me with oxygenated blood
for fight or flight,
but not the
freeze of winter not the
shushing of death
or lostness
or stark realization:
I am alone.

Madness spins its webs and dances uneasy colours
bends logic to a series of protracted calibrations
designed to stretch my belief just one more
click
so that I
fall
because I must believe there is no Logic;
words no longer carry any
Sense; and all that
Is
shifts so…

In this mayhem and torrential drowning of the brain
in all that could be may be was or will be
I feel the edges blur and distinctions slowly
slough off sanded down
by tiny questions furrowing my brow
plowing through the ifs and mays and coulds and shoulds…

which, remember, are not Real.

They are only possibility
and sting me with their fear and certainty of failure
of the sand I must walk on
or did

Madness or keen intellect
neither help me take each step.

For that help I must close my eyes,
extend my hand and trust
as a child her parent
wiser stronger kinder braver

for Someone to lead me through the storm inside
guide me in a path
comfort each toe
and hum a silly song
while guarding me from monsters

I feel the solid sand
but also tiny movements underneath as each small grain
shifts
and starts to fall, but then…
bears my weight, relying on its neighbours and settling into grooves and angles
deeper as on shoulders and the cupped hands of tiny cracks
creating a firm place that’s
resilient (just not static) for my feet to push down, across, and
up again

I feel this as Truth, but not the comforting kind.
Sandy truth, that is its own multitude of angles, and sharp touch.

So…closing my eyes, I try unknowing
to bolster faith
choosing the inherent risk of such a strategy
such a leap
such a hope in a Parent who I cannot see
over the alternative, sight-aided searching
which is worse.

Because with sight I look ahead, imagine, finding no one there
but monsters in the mist
and quicksand everywhere,
and choose to stall, or flee, or fall, whichever act my fears awake
with shadows, threats and half-truths masked as power
strength arrayed against me that,
with a stare, convinces me I should
despair

unless

unless I watch the golden hour
simply fall
and slowly leave and
let what night brings come
and take the darkness as it is –
not as my mind insists it will be -

weak but brave
trembling with sanity
no matter what, I must eventually step
and step again

so… I squint and try to figure out:

which faith – the seeing kind
or that which closed my eyes
is the more blind?