On not giving up

 A friend asked recently how writing is going. The answer is, not well. Although I am gaining more space and freedom in which to write, I rarely get started, and when I do, I hate what I've written. I don't like to read the raw emotion that spills onto the page, yet it feels hypocritical to write with humour, optimism or hope that I don't currently feel.

A few things have prompted me not to give up, however. Last week I saw in my garden a small plant growing in a pot; it was a pot I'd left outside to be re-used, thinking that the seed I'd planted there had died. Yet it grew, without my help, and is beginning to bud. This reminded me of an attempt I'd made at writing a poem about planting this seed. The poem is a re-write of some verses from Habakkuk in the Old Testament, which I have always been drawn to for its bleak, understated sense of optimism. The same day last week, I heard someone read out the same passage from the Bible in a completely unrelated context. And in the last few days, kindness from my family has encouraged me not to give up. So, this post is on not giving up with writing, and it is my attempt at continuing.

(Proof that there is still a bit of hope in me about my writing is that I have a few things that I think might be eventually publishable, which means I can't share them here... however, this is not one of them: due to its lack of actual poetic merit, here's the Habakkuk 'poem'.)

Habakkuk

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet…

yet I planted a seed, left it quiet

on a high shelf near the front door,

I try to remember to water it,

check it during my comings and goings,

before I’m called away again.

It has surely been too long now

to expect anything to come of it,

it must have rotted away,

become one with the soil it sat in.

My heart is a well of grief

for the fruit that never came,

and yet…

yet my feet go on trudging,

stumbling on this mountain side.