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The Will To SurviveMeg Campbell
For Alistair
I lost the will to survive.
Following your lights I encountered
twin spectres, Energy and Time.
I ground to a halt, became
almost speechless, so
you thought me an idiot.
How could I be tired? you demanded,
when I'd done nothing all day?
"Done nothing! DONE NOTHING" !?
It took little energy to form
curses with my lips and shout
them out. It was the end
of my frail composure.
What I could have been,
given more energy. and able
to command time and space –
a woman on a high horse.
Tonight it's the same old cry.
I have done nothing, and nothing
I do counts, or is visible.
Is it really so negligible
my precious effort, for which
I have bargained carefully
in my head?
I begin to slither on black ice,
as though crossing the Desert Road
without windscreen wipers
in a sudden winter freeze.
But that was then, and we
are both different, now.
I have found energy and time
and you have found
delight in me, my old lover.
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