A Stillness in Surrender

The morning sunlight, shaft to ray, a patient, golden hand,

Creeps over the sill, across the floor it starts its snail's pace of a span.

It illuminates the dancing dust motes, slow and deep,

A quietude in the air, the world outside asleep.

My breath, a fragile ghost, held in the quiet,

Before the day begins, before the riot

Of needs and pleas, the endless, grasping calls to help or as well to go away,

stay at bay, my charge will exclaim.

Let me do that task I once mastered which has now mastered my wits and frame,

exhaustion calls louder,

Before the very essence of me tumbles lifeless yet erupting with bottled emotions

Into the chasm of another's need.

A quiet tension, taut, a threadbare gossamer strand,

Connects my weary spirit to the dread

Of what the day demands, no victory or compromises will be reached, the absence of an end.

To mend what cannot be, no making the struggles right.

The surface of my patience, clear and bright,

Reflects the world outside, but holds the weight,

The unspoken truth, the unyielding fate:

No help will come, no hand will reach to share

The crushing burden, this unending care.

Then, a flicker, just a brief, internal shift,

Like glint upon the water, a sudden gift

Of brutal clarity. It’s luminous and stark.

This task, this life, this solitary arc,

Is mine alone.

The outcome, good or ill,

Must be accepted with an unbent will.

A strange liberation, not joyous, but profound,

A resignation whispered without sound.

The light now fractured, showing every flaw,

Yet in its harshness, a new kind of law.

The quiet acceptance, held with gentle grace,

That some burdens are meant for just one space.

And in that moment, small as silence held,

The light reveals a truth, forever spelled.

By JoAnne Scalf