Courage
by Steven Craig
Courage.
Curiosity is the form of feminine courage.
It comes from the veins of your soul
is brought out when you need it.
You do not need it everyday.
You may think that you need it to do your daily work,
your travel,
your engagement with the people about you.
You may feel it is necessary
when you start to open a box,
peer beneath the lid,
opening the curtained door,
feeling the cool draft the sets your hair aloft.
Courage may be needed
to face the rain,
stand in the wind,
recover the broken pieces
that are cast about you.
Courage is always thought
to be needed,
desired to be at hand,
the wished for strength
that one thinks she does not have.
Courage.
You need it only
when there is the moment of hesitation
that makes you realize that the edge
that you are standing on
does not destroy you,
it is a place that your life leaps from.
And as with many such points in life,
it comes to your minds eye
only once in life,
to gather the will
to live within that leap,
or to fade in withdrawal,
back to the moment
that courage is not the flower's bloom.
Courage
There is in so many of us,
this little drawing of a box,
where we are safe inside,
and outside that takes courage.
To avoid that fenced rim,
takes only denial
of any need to know
what it is that life could hold for you beyond.
Some optimists see
fabulous wealth in the gamble
outside that contoured line,
and within a breaths call,
some pessimists will see
fear wielding total ruin
for al you have ever been.
Courage
It states
that what is really there
is what you will make of the time
you live when you leap.
For who could possibly predict its summit,
what painting would reveal
the real artist in your soul,
what news would come to be before hand
with prediction that would hold
all the possible truths
of a single breath,
followed by another,
living on.
Courage
It is always that way,
being a living person,
a woman,
a man.
It is no different for you
than it is for me.
Courage is a meaning
of the minds will
to go to that rim,
to test its edge,
to discover so often to ones total surprise
that the other side of that cordon
is more life,
as real as any before it,
with all its ordinary
the superlative
the ugly
the beautiful airs.
Courage
Thus,
it should be apparent,
that some are more willing to use
the courage
the will to venture
be resolved to live
despite the echoes on the minds walls
that fear dresses
makes results too unbelievable
to anyone else
but ourselves.
To us,
they are indeed so real,
to us alone,
it does take so much courage
to go on that frightening leap
across faith.
The result brushes our fingers
as we grasp it,
it teases our breathe
with scents familiar and still unknown,
it makes our eyes swell
with tears and held attraction,
makes the skin raw
with flaming blood.
Courage
In the end,
the act of courage
is not what you dream
or fear
or debate
or prolong.
In the end,
no matter the opined words
of any sage, in the end,
it is you that is there to live
an aspect of life
it is you
you alone
that makes it horrid
or sublime.
03/09/2009
