On Giving up

Today's the day that's halfway twixt the daylight and the night
The day I start to dread the coming shorter days of light.
From now till almost Christmas-time the days will shorter get
And colder days and nights will shut down life – much darker yet.

The sun has gone away and taken warmth and joy from here
It's slanting rays more oblique now, the leaves all disappear
But what the heck, I hear the stockyard cattle in their pens
Tomorrow's sale, like other weeks, is when their journey ends.

I had not thought I'd see today – no light at all for me;
And here I am, quite well indeed, that's good enough for me.
It's equal day and equal night just for a moment quick
I know a lot of people struggling in the darkness, sick.

The light is 50-50 – odds are higher yet for me,
I'm getting checked quite regular which works just fine for me.
I've taken on one aspect which fed sickness deep in me –
The stress that's been a burden, pulling life right out of me.

I've also started biking 'neath the desk I work upon,
Two hundred miles will soon be passed as I keep moving on.
Nutrition's left to look at yet, but one thing at a time;
Life's better by a long shot, and it feels, right now sublime.

It's not what I expected – it's much better in some ways.
Quite stuck I was upon a beach, and living in a daze;
But as this day I teeter totter – strange it seems to me –
Between the road to healthy life or sliding back, you see.

The road that is familiar has a comfort to its pace –
That way of life before the cancer crept into this place.
The sloppy ways, despairing ever getting out of here
The darkening sense of hopelessness as part of autumn drear.

But then I think of cattle munching down their bit of grass,
And think, "I've got a chance to make a life while daylight lasts.
So knock it off there, silly, for this day will dawn quite soon
And in between, September, we're the light of hopeful noon.

So, take your pictures, process them, convey your thoughts around
With words, and photos books, and songs – let joyousness resound.
Unlike those cattle lowing over yonder in their stalls
Your life has great potential – is much better after all.

How rich the blessed life you've had, the grace that carried you
In years of tribulation, many trials He's brought to you through.
There's folks out there who teeter in the twilight of their lives
And quite a few lose hope – despairing ever to survive.

Your brush with death has given you an inkling of the way
That people go when brushed aside as ones who cannot pay,
By people who no better are, (nor worse, I wager now)
But struggle also in their lives to better do than cows.

Though others talk more helpfully of cancers darkest ways
And how they struggled to survive to see the longer days;
Your walk, quite unexpected, and not needed I would say,
Has sharpened up your point of view and opened up a way –

A way to walk a road that's been familiar all your life,
That lonesome walk twixt cultures which has brought on endless strife.
It's just that, once again, you've found your life all tangled up
Because all cultures draw the line with whom they will not sup.

It's not a preference matter, ‘quite benign at end of day’,
But rather, it affects survival in profoundest ways;
'Cause lots of folks now teeter twixt the daylight and the night
And giving up seems easier, with little strength to fight.

Not just in illness matters, but in economic to,
They teeter twixt the day and night like equinox for you;
It's hope that's short within the lives of folks who struggle on
Through hours of deepening darkness twixt the twilight and the dawn.

But you have made it through that mess, though somewhat battered are –
You're still alive today, as much as anyone, by Gar.
You'll not forget too quickly those grim days of your despair
As you move forward seizing life much better when compared –

To what you had before all hell broke out in life for you,
And you, despairing of continued life, the dawning knew.
So, maybe ask, ‘who else out there is struggling on the edge
Of life, and teeters hopelessly one-stop from dangers ledge?’ –

For maybe from your journey, past and present you can say
The words they need to hear to keep on pressing towards their day.
It takes so little, in a way, to vanquish such despair
And help folks to get up again, breathe autumn's bracing air.

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