While Waiting for Daybreak

 

Would my life were just a photo

smiling back from someone’s screen–

some painted memories in an album

that tell some happy little story,

yet we’re not always who we seem.

 

At times, the past feels like a dream

as days and months keep wending by–

the winter cold sneaks down upon us

as life keeps going all around us.

Like the leaves, we slip and fall

  ...we’re only human, after all.

 

Clouds roll in, dark days abound

to gnaw us like some parasite;

I find my thoughts begin to wander

and in the early hours I ponder

the chill that permeates these bones,

yet will not share with any candor

how hard it is to be alone.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2021

Secrets in Cypher

Words can inspire and sometimes be daunting

and leave us to wonder what someone has meant,

as we try to interpret, to find hidden meaning

yet never assuming that simply in reading

we’ll understand fully another’s intent.

Yet, were they inspired by some hapless reader?

Or a venting of long passed emotional  ties?

Or were they designed by divine intervention 

some dubious cause or perhaps condescension,

that leaves one to wonder if we should reply?

The grass is not greener this side of the spectrum

the scars that we carry weigh heavy some days;

so we wander the lines that are laid out before us

to shine light in our tunnel, inspire our grace–

while we tiptoe politely through each cryptic meaning

lest an ‘ass’ we become in assuming that we

would ever be topic of the lines that we read.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2021

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3

 

What’s to lose and what’s to gain

we work our lives away in vain,

the poor can never get ahead

illusions render poor refrain;

the rich get richer by default

off the backs of all the rest.

Perhaps this life just a test:

with no money to invest

no treasure hidden in some vault

day-to-day, we peck away

just trying to keep the bills at bay,

counting hours as they pass

with very little time to play.

Yet when the reaper comes at last

what is it that we’ll have to show

for all the trials that we faced?

Perhaps it’s time to reassess,

to take a stand for what is best.

Empty, full or in between

we each interpret what is seen…

we count our joys, however rare,

the happiness that we have gleaned.

We weigh the tears that we have shed,

each exhausted minute spent,

every drop that we have bled

each smile, each laugh, each wrinkle earned

each loss, each gain, each heart we’ve spurned

while trying to grasp with clarity

if we are where we’re meant to be.

© Ginny Brannan 2021

Schrödinger‘s Box

We build a box where we exist

four walls, a floor, a roof, a door

and add a lock for our protection.

But in the end, what have we got?

To be closed off is not to live,

to just exist until we’re gone…

Shall we just accept our lot?

There must be more before we’re done.

Have we become Schrödinger‘s cat

existing both outside and in?

Exist we do, but to be fair

we may be trapped inside our lair.

Must choose our confines carefully,

for only we can understand

that balance between "caged" and free.

We’ve built a box where we exist

four walls, a floor, a roof, a door

its blueprint kept inside our head

waiting on some catalyst

to set us free before we’re dead.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2021

* In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illustrates a paradox of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. Wikipedia