The sadness that, this afternoon, <br />pours over me, settles <br />like a dark cloud, watched <br />as it descends, inexorably, <br />becoming heavier as it encloses me, <br />blotting out all thought - <br /> <br />where do you come from, sadness? <br />where are you taking me? do you have a purpose? <br />and will I ever know what you intend? do you <br />come to me, or have I secretly <br />come to you? dragged my heavy boots to this dark marsh? am I <br />to welcome you, as if some long known friend <br />who comes slowfooted, bearing an uncomfortable truth – <br />‘you won’t like to hear this, I know… but as a friend…’? <br /> <br />or are you some bitter enemy, whose only way <br />of stealing what I am, is to leave me flaccid, <br />wearied, slumped into the chair <br />a backbone without spirit, naught but sorry flesh? <br /> <br />or do you have a secret spell, which like a fairy tale <br />I only have to speak, and zap! you’ll vanish whence you came… <br />And look up there, there’s movement in the sky <br />and edging round the cloud, a rim of light… <br /> <br />or are you like a children’s birthday trick, <br />conceived with excited giggles in the other room, <br />a bundle made of old brown paper, dirty newsprint, knotted string, <br />which, shed, reveals some little gift they knew <br />would tell you of their love more warmly than <br />a shop-wrapped parcel with its ribboned neat rosette? <br /> <br />sadness, you shrank immediately I named your name; <br />now I’m laughing at you, like some old friend <br />who steals up on you, bored and dreaming in some queue, <br />to give you then, that gentle shock of love; <br /> <br />and after you’ve gone, sadness, I may remember <br />something valuable.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sadness-of-this-afternoon/
