When In Pain

When I am in pain, My ego would be the first to leave, As rats would a sinking ship; The greater the pain the faster it leaves! My drives get ready to play a masochistic role. All philosophers, Cosmologists, Ontologists, Monists, Dualists, Pluralists, Eschatologists, Epistemologists et al Hastily retreat, like true fair-weather friends, Except Kierkegaard and his lieutenants, Edmund Husserl and Viktor Frankl: they Stand by me; help me, first of all, To see meaning in the situation Where there is apparently none. The pain starts mitigating. The triumvirs prompt me to be positive And do things that I can— in the circumstances, Ignoring things I cannot possibly do or undo. Then I find my other companions, Knowledge, Reason, Experience, etc., Slowly joining hands and doing their bit. Thank God, there is a Kierkegaard! — Ram, R. V. Published in The Creative Collective Anthology Series 2, Graldine Taylor, Ed. Amazon, 2017