Recalibrating Dawns

Uncut Poetry

The relentless agency of living, its insistencies to persist - until it no longer could - its proclivity for drama, its calmness to tired souls: that's one way to see life, when you are about to give up on things, when there seems to be no redemption to distress, when life seems to be an unending travail - something which doesn't give up even when you are ready to. And you search for a reason to carry on. Viktor Frankl said "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." But, alas, you simply can't find a reason - and you can't let go. So you strain to come out every morning. And you see that the ones who are always present are - the sun, the morning, the birds. They find joy without anticipation. They find a sense of being in the very act of repetition. Without expectation, without thinking of the past or future, just letting the nature of what is uncontrollable to do what it does best, and going along with the repetition and the ride. And you step back, and look at this with a new eye. Not as a wound which doesn't heal, not as pain which keeps nagging incessantly. You start to look at it as benediction, a faith that things will unravel the way they have to, that agony is not preordained reality - rather, to be in the incident of life is to be in the full glow of its grace. And everything changes. You look at life with new eyes. Not as anticipation or affliction, not as scar or suture, not as the space between sighs and celebration, but as presence, as stillness, as sanity. The time to create, and find the beyond. Because that is where we always find ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of healing tired souls -

• What is Loss, she asked me
• Loneliness (oh these rains)
• Ruins Have Permanent Flames

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [e-mail] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende https://filmmusic.io/en/song/86-rising-sun