Evelyn Klebert

Thrashing it Out

Children are given a beloved sensibility.
They see the world through unsuspicious eyes,
unless they are taught suspicion.
They expect kindness from everyone,
unless they are taught cruelty.
Their nature is a trusting one,
unless their trust is broken.
As adults we carry the imprints from childhood,
sometimes more difficult to cast off,
than events experienced much later.
Like a footprint on freshly fallen snow,
that mars its pure essence.
So much care should be taken
in what we draw on that fresh new canvas.

It’s quiet through the old house,
although the wood seems to speak itself,
with creaks and noises afoot when all else is still.
The lights flicker in mutating, colored shapes across a darkened ceiling,
the only illumination in the room.
And all is in anticipation,
children sleeping but lightly enough so as to awaken quickly.
Their nerves filled with the awareness that magic is all around them,
magic whether it be true or be imagined is real just the same.
An innocent time,
where possibility stretches an endless length.
It’s quiet through the old house,
But all is wildly alive in anticipation.

from Considerations

Beginnings have no reason.
They are not marked until much has passed.
Endings seem clear,
sometimes final,
sometimes only a well-sheltered pause,
before all begins again.

The mind is kind.
It gives us what we can absorb,
shields us from what cannot be handled.
It softens the harshness in memory,
filtering it through a gentler light.
It closes doors that should be left behind,
but not completely, not perfectly sealed.
So that when life is calmer,
and the heart stronger
the door can be cautiously pried open.
And what was once intolerable,
can be revisited with a different perspective.

Sometimes when your world changes,
momentarily it goes unnoticed.
Life still runs you at a ragged pace,
and business moves you along from minute to minute.
Sometimes when the landscape shifts,
it’s not readily taken in.
Your life is lived on schedule,
meshed from one event to the next.
And it’s only when you finally stop,
reaching for a familiar signpost.
Your fingers stretched wearily, ready to grasp.
But  it’s not there, not where it should be.
Sometimes when your world changes,
you continue living in the old one,
until necessity makes that impossible.