The Choice
Life, and happiness, are a choice — to thrive, or to fall between the cracks.
Pandemic-parched, a dreary dearth Of drought-dried thoughts, world-weary Words fallen through dusty cracks In dark, dank places far below Where nothing good can grow.
Fury, flash of light that rips the sky Lets loose torrential cloud tears, drenching Outstretched arms, bare lightning rods That dare the gods, themselves, to try — Low rumbling thunder, in reply.
My skin, slicked with sun-kissed rain, Sparkles — joy manifest — as I inhale The petrichor, the tang of Earth itself, Of life and death and dying things That wriggle underfoot, unseen.
Inside the compost bin there lurks A sentient yellow slime. Single-celled, brainless, Possibly smarter than I, and yet — I feed it; It makes food, for food that bursts forth green, And one day, fills my belly. I remember —
As dust returns to dust, that we Are but a sun-kissed, rain-drenched flash of life — Itself a moment only, on and of the Earth A part, apart and whole — and happiness Is but a choice; it never was the goal.
I was tagged in a “chain poem,” which is a lot better than a “chain letter”! Seems it started here:
I was tagged by Neha Sandhir S, to write of “happiness”:
And now, I will tag the following, as turnabout is — as they are fine poets (whether they know it or not), to write of “life, lemons, and left-overs”!
Elisabeth Khan, Eli Snow, Bob Jasper, Timothy Key, Rasheed Hooda, Susan Baker, Tree Langdon ♾️, Neha Sandhir S (because turn-about is fair play!), Dr Mehmet Yildiz (make him keep earning that Top Writer badge in Poetry!), Martin Rushton (for starting this chain — no one ever “no backsies!”)
Also, this is not my “pet” but if the sentience of slime mold fascinates you as much as it did me, when I first heard of it, see this:
