SURVIVING

These words need not be red for our blood to run through them.

When tragedy threatens to end us, we are flooded by what is felt;

Our faces fluctuating, warped like an acre passing

Seasons. Perhaps the years are plotted & planned

Just like seeds in a fresh-plowed field.

When we dream, we act only with instinct.

We might not be fully sure of all that we are.

& yet we have endured all that we were.

Even now we’re shuddering:

The revelation aching.

It didn’t have to be this way.

In fact, it did not have to be.

The gone were/are no threshold,

No stepstone beneath our feet.

Even as they did not die

For us, we shall move for them.

We shall only learn when we let this loss,

Like us, sing on & on.