Norberto Franco Cisneros | + Follow Poet |
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Rising and Falling In a Tempest

The unpredictable yaw of rolling seas,
as in life, pummels us from one side to the other 
randomly dictating capricious ways 
arbitrarily gripping our lives

Life, like the ghost of Christmas past,
comes at night, tells its tale and is gone 
but the dues it extracts keep mounting
like wrinkles on our faces the years pile on 

The uncertainty of pandemics sends people into despair 
mental frenzy abounds,
they wring their hands and worry
what happens if I get sick and lose my job?

At night I hear the sound of eighteen wheeler trucks rumbling
toward companies that make copious profits 
past the foothills where coyotes cry nature's lament
exacerbating my precarious and worrisome future

Sometimes, I feel like a piece of watermelon 
exposed to the desert heat slowly drying up
or a taco at Christmas time or a paraplegic in a footrace     
exposed in those places where I don’t belong 

Leisure time when needed is so elusive 
yet now all I’ve got is time and plenty of it, 
but there’s no leisure in it only worry 
and does not give me needed rest

The yaws of life 
seldom deviate from its variant course
but like ships at sea rising and falling in a tempest
they proceed at full speed 

Our Ship of Life moves predictably toward an unknown horizon
unsteadily shaking us from side to side, up and down
like loose apples bobbing in an ocean
with our paths of uncertainty unfolding as we hold on

With our hearts frozen in a delirium of past disappointments
they vanish the happy times into the ether of regrets 
still we cling to those cherished memories
when Life was more accepting of our youthful indiscretions

maybe, but Life being what it is, we cling to the good feelings experienced 
that we come to accept as the ebb and flow of life evolves 
and pushes us toward a far horizon 
one we shall never know.

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