Fall From Grace

A poem by an Irish poet. "Fall from Grace"

Returning another autumn we discover a changed regime.

A community reshuffled,

Losing my sponsors in that shake-up,

Roots too shallow.

I fall from grace.

New brooms with fresh sweeps

How easily we become how we're seen.

Failure throws an oblong shadow,

I cover hurts with a jaunty humor, pretend not to care, affect disdain,

Harden the core to day by day humiliations.

Tiny erosions of respect,

learn the slow rustings of shame

And laugh a bitter laugh while inside discs of trust skew and warp.

Were can you turn, you've made your bed now widower to your dream.

How many faces must a wound wear

Iconoclast, windmill tilter, self-saboteur.

Stunted years of a poise too hard won,

Yet in such moves the spiral turns,

Nothing,

A squall in a child's cup.

But you're the child, this is your cup.

I owe no master, my gods of innocence fallen

I cling a fragile self-reliance.