Sustenance

Sustenance
    

Moon and Branch, by Mike Crabtree
http://crabphoto.com/

   






























When caught within the madness we create,
we’re captives who have lost, it seems, their souls,
until a child, a dog, a breaking dawn
can reconnect us with our primal source.
 
And some may find this in a fallen leaf,
and others, in the rhythms deep within
or in the tides that move the days and nights,
or in the turns and seasons of their lives.
 
And so it is with me, whose spirit seems
to weaken from the running of the race,
but then, from drinking at the spring, revives,
so I can slowly walk awhile at peace.

******

I'll give, as just an instance, this – a day
that I remember from the jumbled wreck
that's been my life from working in the mills
that now have entered even in my dreams.
 
So after sleeping – or a semblance of it,
I woke and hurried out to work and then
I met the morning, with the chill of dawn,
and this, with coffee, roused me as I walked.
 
And working then throughout the stressful day,
I did by chance look out the window once.
And then, on high, I saw the clouds that passed.
They gave me breath, and so I still could be.

    

I kept on working, as the day went out,
and felt that I’d been torn and drained of strength.
But when I left the building where I'd worked,
I met the evening and it soothed my soul.

And after dinner, though I still was spent,
I ventured out to tryst awhile with night.
And once again, it seemed I came to life
beneath the stars that shivered in the cold.
 
But then, returning, when I tried to sleep,
despite a dullness and a deep fatigue,
I only slept but briefly and awoke
in terror from the roar of factories..

But when I stood awhile by a window-side
and saw the moon behind a reaching branch,
I found my solace and my silence deep
and so could slumber for a bit till dawn.

******

How rarely do we pause to question why
we do the things that we are told to do.
And some might say, "We do, so we can live."
But so do those, who murder by the book.
 
A job we do should give us nourishment
not only of the body but of soul.
But when it ceases to, or shatters us
we need a source to make our fragments whole.
 
And so I draw my daily sustenance
from that which gave me birth and gives me life.
For when I’m agitated, tired, depressed,
it never fails to give me strength again.
 
2015 March 1, Sun, 1:27 am
(additions and changes made that
afternoon & on March 6th Fri. night)
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn