Help Poem by Lonnie Hicks

I am conflicted about asking for
or receiving
help;

In one definition help implies
a weakness
I do not want to be mine,
do not want to acknowledge,
indeed instinctively feel
that such help accepted
hinders my own development
and in the end I am weakened.
for that reason.

To jump life's hurdles
requires strong legs
but if I am lifted over each
my legs will be weak
in the end.
and failure sure
my eventual fate.

Help also
may imply some sort of rescue plea
which I don't really feel.

I don't want, pardon me
your help
but my own Help
to my own ends
and that is no plea.

Help, no matter how sincerely given
belongs always to the giver
and I need help toward my own goals
not those
the giver seeks.

To be sure there is another sense
in which
the Help
is the server and the domestic.

Worthy occupations to be sure
but for me
adds
new confusion here
and is not clarifying.

So what kind of help
therefore, do I conclude
is best for me?

Help is best
in my degree
aims toward bending
in those directions
I've foreseen
work best for me.

Helpers then are co-dreamers
who can see the same dream I dream
and thereby help create that worthy dream.

And come to think of it
isn't this the very definition of Community?

Is this kind of help
the bedrock
we call Democracy?

Is this not the help which is best for good marriages
and relationships too?

And of course, it is probably excellent
for the communication
which occurs
in good poetry;
co-dreamers, are we?

Well,
thanks for indulging
and perhaps
sharing
can we say helping
with the dream inside
this little attempt at poetry?