Different Shades of Hard
by John Herlihy
We live with so many different kinds of hard,
From losing our keys to being feathered and tarred.
Experiences we never thought we must endure,
Some of them hurtful, some of them make us pure.
Love lost heard in the silence of an unrung bell,
A secret so dark you could never anyone else tell.
The missing of another that we feel hour after hour,
Witness the simple demise of a once beautiful flower.
A lingering hope that will never come true ,
A fervent desire that away with the wind blew.
An insurmountable debt that can never be paid,
Alone on a darkened path about to be waylaid.
What about that of all loneliness leading us alone,
What of steady self- carving leaving behind bare bone.
With many varieties of hard let us come to terms,
Hardship represents challenges not everyone earns.
The difficult hard that serves hard’s version of grit,
The hard people that endure when thrown into a pit.
Waking up at the crack of dawn to face another day,
Having to learn something new when nothing left to say.
Then the hard as emotional hurt to bring a personal sting,
Sharp, immediate, personal, a spear in the heart to bring.
A twisted truth or by a loved one being misunderstood,
Being ignored, not listened to, socializing under a hood.
Then the deep, slow ache that is the hallmark of sorrow;
Losing a mother, husband, child, our lives merely on borrow.
Do we really know what hard is, this must be hard enough;
The river of hardship flows ever onward, life can be rough.
Moral courage proves hard, asking something of the soul,
Telling the truth when silence and lies all our courage stole.
Anger may feel justified, but kindness often rules the day,
Standing alone outside the crowd and all they have to say.
What about the hard we feel when we must simply let go,
To transform into another person alien to what we know.
Wanting to be someone bigger, better, not just a lost waif,
Someone who cannot overcome their limits, just to be safe.
Hard is the love that can be necessary, bewildering, tender,
The sorrowful end, the love lost, all that we still remember.
Sweet loving that returns after the heart has been broken,
Loving another when their love blame and hurt betoken.
Finally the quiet, resigned hard that feels like surrender;
The fading hopes, quiet despair, all we cannot remember.
Accepting limits of time and things that cannot be changed;
Resigned to the destiny of things that cannot be rearranged.
Shades of hard, but nothing as hard as life’s perennial mystery.
No one can escape this eternal question, its mysterious beauty,
The challenge to actually live a question as a bud ready to unfold.
Hard as it may seem, we each live our lives as a unique story told.
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Copyright © John Herlihy
Friday 13 February 2026
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Last night, I saw the story of a woman who survived the collapse of the second tower in 9/11. A Robin Roberts documentary.
She was found by a retired search dog from Newfoundland after 29 hours of agony where she couldn't move underneath a 3 ton boulder. Talk about being in a hard place. It still took three more days to remove the boulder safely and other jagged metal debris before she could be safely removed.
Miraculously, she was basically unhurt except for bruises and contusions.
Ron