Notebook: 1/4/90

Adversity

The human capacity
to create or even to
fabricate
the human out of the
inhuman is at the center
of our ability to
tolerate and finally to
weather adversity-
sometimes even to
recognize
the challenge inherent in
adversity and to rise to
the occasion,
adapting to even
the most
tiresome burden, gradually
the circumstances become
part of the landscape,
and then ourselves.

A child's father is
poisoned. The boy clings to
the stretcher and in
order to make him
let go of his father- who
is bleeding from the
mouth- an attendant
tells him his daddy
will live. He is 4
years old. It is
Christmas Eve. When
he dies- the boy
cannot forget- night
after night his
mother must rock him
quiet.

5/20/90

One day you see that
you can do no more
than accept the
washings, the
wendings, the
meanderings of
feelings which
arose from the comings
and goings of joys and
sorrows.

Emotions wash over
me, splash through
me

Fate's tides
approach my feet on
the beach.

I watch the waves
but I want to keep
my feet dry.