What Keeps Me Going

When didn't exist, in this globe, Ill-health, Hunger and poverty? When didn't pandemic and rife, Make beings shattered and empty? When weren't wars and battles, For power and pride, fought? When didn't calamities Make humanity feel naught? Tensions, tug-of-wars and turmoil, Like land and sea, perpetual, Tribulations poke me, like thorns, As though it were their ritual, Do dull eclipses, yet, Darken the earth, always? Don't sun-rays, like brightest lanterns, Light my lamps in amazing ways? When sun and moon and stars Eternally exist, By nature's intervention, Though, cosmos its movements shift... When I keep my inner eyes open, I find poetry lie in all things; Themes are scattered charmingly around, Like golden sun-lit bright autumn leaves; I gather them, as my mind pleads, All my moans and groans my pen heeds; I write; though I seldom succeed, In fulfilling all human needs... Optimism, like very polestar, Lightens my spiritual path; Joy overtakes the inner gloom, Inner peace, like balm, heals my wrath; I, like tying cattle in sheds, Bind my vices in their places, Tortoise-like slow and steady steps, Wins for me all cut-throat races... Faith, hope and trust are my horses, On which I jubilantly ride, Love becomes my normal nature; In God, I peacefully abide...! 02 April 2022 What keeps me going Poetry Contest Sponsored by: Cecelia Hopkins-Drewer