This Poem Is Everything This Website Is About

enough

Img: Steve Pottinger, courtesy of his website.

And so, it comes.
That winter morning when you wake
and find that you have had

enough.

You will give it up, you tell yourself,
retreat to the hills, the coast,
a cottage, a boat, a hut
some place out on the edge of it all.
Anywhere but here.
Anything but this.
You make plans to see out your days
walking beaches
scattering resting gulls
climbing mountains
to stare at far horizons.
You tell yourself
you will tend vegetables
grow old by the heat of a fire
lose yourself in books
and the view from a window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let the rich and the furious
have the world for themselves.
Much good may it do them.

There’s no shame, you tell yourself,
in howling your grief
into the roaring wind
at the stars, the moon,
anything that listens,
in finding solace in the bottle
or the bottom of a pint.
There’s no shame in walking
away from the fight,
throwing the towel in.

Just let the rich and the furious
have the world for themselves.
And much good may it do them.

You tell yourself all of this and more.
You even believe it.

And then, one day, it comes.
That morning which has always
been written into your bones
woven into your future
that morning when you wake
and find that you have had

Basta!
Enough!

and you roll up your sleeves
and set to once again.

© Steve Pottinger. 13th December 2019