ADVERSITY

Picture Courtesy: www.erinsadventures.wordpress.com


Throughout life,
I’ve appreciated adversities,
Called them blessings.
Life’s lessons
Cloaked in angst.


I’m wary of success,
It breeds complacency,
Slowly dulls your wit,
Dims your candle,
No matter how brightly lit.


I’m happy in success,
Do not get me wrong,
Success has never made me sad,
If I said it did,
Call me a bloody liar.


Before me stood a mountain,
Towering high into the clouds,
My impediment,
Night and day,
I clung to its side,
Aspiring daily to its higher heights.


Breaking sweat,
My everyday toil,
Clothed in dirt,
My brown skin soiled.
Several days of grief,
On the hangman’s noose my belief,
Unbelief,
Lingering doubt,
The human trickery,
Nature’s bribery,
The downfall of many a men.


Good grief,
My sweet relief,
I stand atop my impediment,
Of a mountain peak,
Dogged belief,
Pinned to my chest,
A soldier of life,
Forever embracing the strife.


Then my tragedy,
The ephemeral nature of success,
Far out in the distance,
I spy a higher peak,
My success dwarfed,
In the shadows,
Of the greater challenge,
My adversary,
Forever my reckoning.


Dwarfed,
And somewhat miffed,
By a much greater feat,
I take solace in the shadows,
Of a daunting challenge,
Success the illusion of absolute,
Ultimate,
Only but for a while.
Success forever dwarfed
By today’s challenge.


Even in nature,
Adversity speaks,
The land rises and falls,
Among the mountain peaks,
Valleys do dwell,
For there to be life,
A heart must beat,
A beating heart,
Does rise and fall,
For one to breathe,
Inhale exhale,
A chest in turns of rises and falls.


Mountains,
Valleys,
Rises
And falls,
Adversaries,
Standing tall
In varying snapshots of time,
Spellbound,
That is time,
A mere spectator,
To an unending tug of war.


For one to succeed,
There must be a challenge,
In embracing challenge,
We look to succeed,
Success and challenge,
Twin adversaries,
On opposite sides of the divide,
Antagonism,
Rivalry,
Two squabbling puzzle pieces,
Complimentary of each other,
Only in opposition,
Life’s perfect tune resides in adversary,
Nature’s eternal balancing act remains adversity.