Within My Sorrows

Within My Sorrows

I don’t mean to complain, it’s simply become a habit,
a well-worn path, a late morning communiqué.
Cranky is as cranky does and I’m doing cranky like
I’ve fastened it on my lapel.

It’s not that I revel in the drudgery; there is some evidence
I delight in smiles more than the four walls bearing down on
late afternoon winter like the closing credits of a movie
you wish you hadn’t paid to see.

I didn’t mean to be short with you; my skin is always tingling
and hair-triggered. I don’t mean to be famously gun-shy,
hiding so I don’t have to wave at people I have never met.

I cannot get it back, the lad who I was when the world was in front of me,
every decision a step toward the candy-store, every morning a reason
to try something new.

I pray, perhaps with my faith that has flinched. I pray,
while I scan the keyboard for happier letters to write.

I have less money than I need to make it till I die,
I have enough friends, but cannot find the money to
bring them next door or a day’s drive away again.

I play, perhaps with less abandon and passion. I play,
fingers curled around the guitar-neck, fingers ready to pounce
the black and whites. But nothing new fascinates me and my
old riffs rarely satisfy.

I don’t mean to complain, don’t want to be hypnotized by
tomorrow’s rainstorm. My day passes before I think of anything
that would fill my joybucket surely.

Here are my tears, My Lord, My Love, I am sorry I have less faith
and have not found the happy by riverbanks or back-porch friends.

Here is the remainder of the day and the one cent curiosity
about tomorrow. I will lay it on the page, a photo of rides around the bend
now too lazy to find.

I wish I was a loveable curmudgeon, but all I have become is
a cry-baby who can find nothing ahead to smile about.

I know the sun dwells beyond the clouds, and cannot bear to
give away the little hope I have remaining as I walk more disappointed
in my day than any reader.

I know the Savior dwells within my sorrows, and I drain the cup dry
holding to the love, the Creator of my days.