"There must be hope in sorrow though it seems / These wings are broken now yet we must rise"

New Year's Eve Birthday Resolution at Fifty

To those who have suffered bitterness can
Prove to be the stone by which we stumble
Undoing all we work for taking all
We have loved and built however humble
The rock by which we ultimately fall
It has destroyed many a stronger man
Than me to see it suck the life away
From those whom I have loved the light of day
Gone out from their eyes the sun from their skies
Bitterness their undoing in the end
Has spoken to me that this must not be
The ruin of the rising of our dreams

There must be hope in sorrow though it seems
These wings are broken now yet we must rise

Suicide has taken many a friend
This horror would not have happened unless
We had been overpowered in the dark
Alone at the crossroads of bitterness
Where shadows of grief are so sharp so stark
Burning alone in the crucible of
Suffering with no light no hope no love
Turning to stone there with no one to care
Where it is always night and never day
Alone on the telephone it has been there
Waiting in the silence to bear us away
At the existential moment of despair

Therefore now as I mark a half a century
I resolve I must leave bitterness behind
I dare not let it hollow out my trust
I care not for corrosion nor for rust
By which bitterness would eat away my mind
To rot out from the inside is no destiny



+Steven Curtis Lance

Copyright MMIV Silke LLC