Hard Times

When hope is at its lowest ebb,
when the blackest cloud
descends upon the barren landscape,
when the bad guys are at their winning-est,

I don't want to read or study or struggle through
the profound or disturbing or grimly prophetic.
I don't want to process the evening news,
or much of anything else, to be truthful.

Times are hard these days,
and it's easy to be impatient, to be frustrated,
to be angry, to be lonely, to argue,
to snap, to be the worst that I can be.

But...I put on my mask--
the happy-face one that says all is fine--
and I make my tea and read my paper
and carry on as if, as if...

I were breathing free, and life was good;
as if clouds of worry had given way to
clear blue sky and I could live again the life
I never knew I had... till now.