Poem ~ What doesn't kill you ...


What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ...


... the cliche says. But not how much it hurts. 

And how you break, over and over, and the horizon, 

where you want to believe strength does lie, 

is completely out of sight. For now 

it’s placing one foot in front of the other, 

making yourself breathe, deeply, forcing yourself 

to notice what the world still has to offer you: 

daffodils crowning the bank, a woolly cloud 

of old man’s beard in the hedgerow, how the shadows 

on the footpath through the woods remind you 

of broken shuttering on the walls of an old barn. 

And yes, the light squeezing through. 





In memory of Mammy 1932 ~2021



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