These are the days

These are the days of unspeakable things

and so you dream houses lifted and smashed

like snailshells, the reactor’s heat

rising and rising to peak like the tsunami,

a city in flames. Your nights are an exercise

in navigation, hand over hand, alone.

All the big journeys in the human story

start with a loss. Then there’s the labyrinthine

plummet into darkness, breathless, sealed-in

before the hero’s redemption into light.

And though the world’s troubles can’t be

averted or salved, there are the small

local miracles: the grain quietly swelling

in the fields, the bird at the window.

And here she sits beside you, love the light

at the edge of the wasteland, willing the moment 
when she can believe you might stir, open your eyes,

ask for some soup, a leaf-thin piece of bread.

– Roselle Angwin

The phrase 'the light at the edge of the wasteland' is borrowed from Mandy's review of my book on amazon. Thank you, Mandy, for both!