Sometimes In Your Sadness Poem by RIC BASTASA

sometimes in your sadness
the flying sparrows of the fields
are nothing but dry leaves blown by a
very dry wind towards the mountains

in your sorrow the roses blooming
along your paths become nothing but
lumps of mud sticking to their thorny branches
and the leaves are but trash paper
bound for some burning turning to ash

sometimes in your long mourning
you do not see the shining stars
and you wish that the moon and sun
may altogether stop making the nights and days.

you wish total darkness. You like that
everything becomes mute and blind and deaf.
Your friends and those who love you have
became straw men on the rice fields. They
have become to you utterly useless.

Just because the person you love had perished.
Everything has become useless.
The world looks at you and asks: Is there only one
person who is lovable that all those creatures
around you become nothing?

The world understands and mourns with you
only for a while. They have counted the time. They have
waited for so long. They cannot endure sorrow. They
have all other beautiful things to enjoy, joys to savor.
They are impatient now. Sorrow has a beginning. It has
also an end. Sadness cannot be forever. There is no such
thing as overwhelming sorrow.

Now they have contempt for you. The length of your sadness
has exceeded the limits that they have set. The boundaries
of joy, and bliss and happiness have been encroached.
Look over there. There is happiness waiting. There is dancing
over the other fence. They are waiting for you.

Do not frustrate them. They have mourned with you.
And it is over. Now you have to be with them too.
They love life. They like to sing. They like to jump with joy.

Now that you have come back to your senses.
Sadness is over. Let us begin the first step to happiness.