The Other Side

We get up every day
and do the work.
There is drama, pain,
resistance, play,
noise. Sometimes
the deafening silence.

We get up every day and do the work.
No one anywhere says a word because
they do not see and cannot know
what’s required to enter the chambers of the heart,
day after day, week after week, year after year.

They cannot know what it’s like to crawl along your belly
through the tears-snot-pain-awful for what seems like miles
in order to find that reliable feast set in a room of rock:
peace, persistence,
pleasure.

We tell them but they do not believe:
the other side of the tunnel opens
in all directions to pure
blinding
light.

P.S. My book of poetry is pay-what-you-can priced.