This Time
By Shelagh Callaghan
On the day the sun shines it is a rainbow kaleidoscope of joy and living.
The tilt of a bird’s white wing catching the light, shimmering – a silver angel reaching
for the heavens.
A flower opening, velvet petals, peach skin soft, tiny filaments of life.
The sky a blue of forgotten times, a vault so high it is unreachable and yet on these
days
I can aspire to fly beyond it to an infinity of beauty and heart -breaking loveliness.
On the bad days there is no sun.
There is nothing of joy to move me to tears, nothing to uplift or sustain.
Only the vision of a dark road, leading to darker places.
The black dog, the dark cloud, the weight of untold misery – but why?
I’m lucky, I have so much – so it must be my fault I cannot free myself from the
sucking, destructive hole of misery.
I want to see the sun again. Yet this must be a life choice –
I’m choosing to live my life like this. For now – I think, I hope.
But will I marvel at a butterfly again moved by its perfect symmetry?
Will I smile to myself as I see a ladybird and remember the childish rhyme?
Perhaps I won’t climb out of the hole this time – in which case what is the point?
Perhaps there will be no more happiness.
In which case why carry on?
The pointlessness of this life.
And then, by chance I see a tilt of a bird’s wing catch the light, I stop and see a
sunbeam somewhere breaking the clouds.
A stirring in my soul – nourishment, a feast for my emotions.
Not this time then.
This time I will join the silver angel and reach for the heavens.
This time.