Common Sense That
Is Worth A Million.

(Some outlooks that look inward)

Life is a burden far too often
bending us in grief
like a backpack unseen
full of the remnants of the brick house
that was once our ex-girlfriend
or the strong but severed limbs
of a cherished gentleman
.
It can be a recalcitrant
child's endless rebellion
or a decree that slashed sacred vows
into two separate divisions
unfairly shared,
as well as a terminal disease
not yet diagnosed

Pounds pain us, pain pounds us
and so much more assails us
with no need to name each
individual load of ballast
that we lug around

We all bear such scars.
Scars are the cliff notes
of our wretchedness
both physically and mentaly.

Life can be a pendulum of sorrow
swinging from our souls
in endless ways to tick us off
and it can control the beating of our hearts,
turning squared shoulders round
and dragging us down.

Eyes leak and ears fall deaf to the
endless voices in our heads that scream
for us to cling to hope and carry on.
Quasimotorless we have little strength
to pursue elusive dreams..

But the simple things of life.
with its many lighter sides can ease
the weight of the wait until
we find modicums of relief
.
A shared smile of
a tiny child we cherish,
a sunny day that reminds us
of other even sunnier days
from the halcyon of our youth.
The slipping grip of two sets of lips
finding purchase and igniting
long lost passion or a new love.
A sudden change in our paths of fate
towards brighter horizons.
plus so much more
too vast to even attempt
to mention here
.
I had a friend who killed himself
over a girl who left him,
quietly slipping away to oblivion
in the wee hours of the night.
His dear Mother unaware of his passing
went out the next morning
to get the newspaper
and found a note to him
taped to the door.
She took it up to his room
and found him dead in his bed
from an overdose of pills.
It turned out that the note
was from his girlfriend
begging his forgiveness
for doubting his love and asking
to get back together with him.

But at that point it would have
required her suicide as well.
A life ending and life changing
event all in a single
twenty four hour period
that would have ended
his sentence of death
with an exclamation
of love renewed.

One must shuck off the
tedious burdens of life
or be crippled by their weight.
or one must grow stronger
simply by bearing the load
until time relieves the
past and brings a present
of a better future
.
When my Mother was
declared brain dead
all the way out in California
I had to fly there from my home
in Ohio to sign the order
to turn off her life support.
No one else in my family was
strong enough to sign it.
and so I signed that awful
sheet of acceptance,
my mind screaming at God...
"W H Y !! ??

But then as I stood at her side
as she passed in that.
moment she was no longer
a viable, life sustaining vessel,
I felt a comfort I have never known
wash over me like a warm mist
and I felt the absence of her presence
with far less pain, for she had been freed
of the burdens she had born for sixty years.

As I was leaving her I.C.U. Room
where no flowers or wreaths or any
decorations or gifts were allowed
I spied beneath her bed a long,
white feather lying just inside the railing
next to where she lay.

But how had it gotten there?

The Doctor and nurse in attendance
were both baffled and I was in awe.
for I knew then that she had been
carried to a better place
.
Life is a heavy burden
made even more unbearable
as each year passes,
but a soul only
weights a few ounces,
as light as a feather
left behind in a rush to
a burden less place.

There are many lessons we learn
and changes we make
from the burdens we have born.

Without worry we would all be
far more reckless.

Without some loneliness
we would take love
far too much for granted.

Without pain we would grow numb
to the benefits of sorrow free life.

Rich men who can have anything at all
rather quickly grow bored
with most anything at all.

The world is such a beautiful place
but we have to struggle
with the world's ugliness as well
much like candy’s shrink wrap to get at
what is sweeter inside and savor it.

Remember what’s good about
all you have sampled here on earth
and dwell on the smorgasbord
you have devoured and you will be
less hungry in the lean times.

Just common sense
worth a million.

Art~Whimscally Yours Studio
Matthew F. Blowers III-©-2019