I Hesitate

I hesitate to declare my despair
for fear that I might come to drown in it,
yet declare I must just to stay afloat,
these poems my raft of air on despair

hope is a subtle thing, a night glimmer
of inner phosphorescence barely seen,
yet counter to the dark’s immensity,
this glimmer active in the heart of me

against the forces of this terror’s time,
I dream of peace, of some surcease of hurt,
I fear my dread’s weight will sink raft of air,
but I am slight as Lao Tzu butterfly…

sunset is the sorrow of lost today,
that brings rosy ache of another dawn