Life operates on an invisible pendulum,

Constantly moving and evolving…

Swinging to love; weightless and free,

Where gratitude and mirth overflow

But momentum is gathering,

It will swing back.

 

Pausing for an infinitesimal moment, in boundless joy

Before lurching towards the depths,

Passing through an emotional kaleidoscope

To its opposite partner: despair.

I feel its inevitable power and sway,

Like a heeling yacht at the mercy of the ocean.

 

Please don’t let those dark tentacles pull me down,

Dragging me towards the inner abyss,

Where blackness engulfs and consumes.

A void, a vacuum of happiness and air

I cannot breathe, burdens are impossible to bear,

Hope – do not desert me, I will become nothingness.

 

Realm of unmet desire, stifled purpose, broken dreams

And so it goes;

I teeter between light and dark,

Passing through the chromatic scales of life,

Spared no notes; resonance for every season.

A symphony of joy, a sonata for sorrow,

 

Plucked and played at each end of the spectrum,

My journeyed heart yearns for equilibrium.

It can be the organ of my ecstasy, or my downfall…

There is no way to ignore its vibrations.

I am the composer of my soul’s music,

I alone conduct the sound of my energies.

 

Singing true to my keys: be they major or minor.

Will I soar on a meaningful adagio?

Or become enslaved to a never-ending fugue?

Will my melody ever be heard in the vast universe?

Listened to or ignored, my music is being performed.

I will play it, then let it go.

 

Those tunes will come to their finale,

I must remain in control; in balance…

At home in the symmetry of my soul;

That place of perfect peace and serenity.

Why must I experience such extremes?

Perhaps that is the nature of intense passions?

 

Without the lows there would be no highs.

I cannot deny my feelings,

They are part of me, not greater than the whole.

Once felt, I endeavour to release them,

Send them on their merry or miserable way,

And return, once again to equilibrium…

By Virginia Burges