This poem, Time Was by John Wain, starts with anxiety/depression, but ends with optimism & delight in life
I wonder now why I was born dismayed.
What was the shape that gibbered through the room?
Who told me that all good men were afraid?
I think I lay & trembled in the womb,
As mindlessly as rags flap in the wind.
To live is to go forward & forget.
My shattered bones knit up & march again.
I paid for all mistakes with drops of sweat
Strained from the meaty gammon of my pain.
Now that I start my journey to the truth,
Let me set down the burdens of my youth!
…
I upped my eyes: nine seasons I lay prone.
Now, looking up, I find the world has grown
Time was I thought the world was thin & dry,
A heap of shavings curled from heaven’s blade.
(Let fall a match the flames would hit the sky.)
I tried to hide, but shavings gave no shade.
The sunlight pierced my vitals like a knife.
I writhed: I opened: suffering was life.
A wind kissed leaf & lake: that wind was I;
At last desert flowered with delight.
I heard the stars drum in the hollow sky.
Roused by that drumming, here I stand upright.
Now let my fossils lie: no more retreat:
My hopes are sharp as glass before my feet
I wonder now why I was born dismayed.
What was the shape that gibbered through the room?
Who told me that all good men were afraid?
I think I lay & trembled in the womb,
As mindlessly as rags flap in the wind.
To live is to go forward & forget.
My shattered bones knit up & march again.
I paid for all mistakes with drops of sweat
Strained from the meaty gammon of my pain.
Now that I start my journey to the truth,
Let me set down the burdens of my youth!
…
I upped my eyes: nine seasons I lay prone.
Now, looking up, I find the world has grown
Time was I thought the world was thin & dry,
A heap of shavings curled from heaven’s blade.
(Let fall a match the flames would hit the sky.)
I tried to hide, but shavings gave no shade.
The sunlight pierced my vitals like a knife.
I writhed: I opened: suffering was life.
A wind kissed leaf & lake: that wind was I;
At last desert flowered with delight.
I heard the stars drum in the hollow sky.
Roused by that drumming, here I stand upright.
Now let my fossils lie: no more retreat:
My hopes are sharp as glass before my feet
