The Human Factor

It's dark right now. I feel it everywhere.

And I am afraid. It is too invasive,

Like the tendrils of ivy on an old house:

Pervasive and determined, poking its roots

Into crevices to cling and conquer

With its persistence and slyness;

Preparing to bring down

Something which was once strong,

A sanctuary, a shelter brought to ruin;

To pieces.

From the news bullet-ins that fire misery,

Of war, of derision, of money-grabbing,

Motivated by the singular pursuit of personal gain,

Or personal aggrandisement;

A selfishness of self, of wealth, powered by stealth.

There is a global collective of man vs man,

Competing, beating, depleting:

Negative to the point of frostbite -

Loss, pain, damage on a scale

That numbs and positivity succumbs.

Is it apathy that has brought

Us here? To a place no-one can like?

Except those who benefit from its bleakness.

Those who enjoy the spread of fear,

Who receive angry warmth from its cold confines;

Its mercenary nature; its destructive love of difference;

its debilitating insipid seepage,

Its leeching blackness and the fuelling of

Its encroachment, encompassing and enveloping

Gathering us into its folds

Only to divide us, to split us open,

Baring us like a ripe water melon,

Red and exposed: vulnerable.

Sometimes I despair under its black weight;

The fear drives the fear that I keep contained in me:

Fear for my family; fear for my friends;

Fear for a future.

I crave a glimpse of the light;

I feel like I can still recognise it

But I am not sure in this.

It is squeezed, under torment from

Its pursuers; hiding in small places,

Rare and golden; a flash on the periphery of vision:

Caught but fleeing, knowing that

It can only survive if it is free,

Unbound.

I want to hold that lightness

In my hands, like a wounded bird,

And reassure it, cradle it.

But, like the black that chases it,

I would be its captor, its gaoler,

The walls of restriction.

I don't want that. I want the light to be free.

I want to be a creator of light,

An illuminator.

I want the light to be shared.

I want that light to split the black.

I want it to roam around the world

And manifest itself in the small gestures;

In the kindnesses: in the opened doors,

In the compliments; in the help and assurances

And the charity and the hand-holding

And the blanket-covering.

In the joy of living that is part of

The human factor; the essence of us.

I seek the light, like a detector of a gold nugget

In a red desert, pummelled by heat:

A search that seems endless, punishing

And fruitless. But it is there, deeply embedded

But sleeping and waiting.

I am a rarity, I feel;

the light-seeker

Alone.

But these are not my thoughts.

They are the thoughts of my enemy,

Driving themselves into my mind,

the ivy tendrils, exhausting in their rooted

Probing.

Because there is light, in me. In others.

I feel it. I sense it. I will it.

I feel the ripple of its wing

Creating a storm, that will deter

And cleanse if we let it.

I will fight for it, its scarcity

Its brightness, its power.

I have to believe

The darkness will be abated.

I will fight for the light.