By Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Go outside at 2:32 a.m. when again,
you’re up but also down, the diagnosis
still trembling in your throat and guts,
no way to find ground until the next
doctor visit or scan, and even then,
what will you really know?
Shiver but sit anyway on a lawn chair
and wait until you hear the barred owl
or cottonwood shake the wind out
of its long and brittle December hair.
This is the world that knows you best.
Go inside and lie down, counting
how many words you can make
out of the letters in the word “hope,”
help, hone, harness, hurt, holding
until you forget what you’re doing.
When, in your dream, you jump or fall off
a swing in your old high school playground,
notice how cushioned the hard ground
becomes in winter when dirt inhales air
so that the earth can expand back out.
There’s so much ready to hold you,
give you leverage for standing back up.
Let the darkness focus its eyes to yours.
Then you’ll know what to do.
*Written in response to Ada Limon’s “Instructions on Not Giving Up.”
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam’s Well, a novel; and The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she offers writing workshops, coaching, and collaborative projects. Her poetry has been widely published, including in Terrain, Half and One, Poets & Writers, Negative Capability, Mockingheart Review, Two Rivers, The New Territory, Louisville Review, New Letters, and dozens of other journals.