Wee Win

I have to search for the point

Sometimes, when few eyes

Meet the lines I have long

Laboured to lay down. Then

I recall the howling Midnight

Host blithely declaring each day

A shameful waste, lived vainly,

Always at an immeasurable cost,

Always bereft of untarnished

Achievement.

I remind myself: each poem

Penned and put out, rippling,

Each paltry patch of life pressed

Into lines, which touch the thought

Of strangers unsought—however

Scant—is a victory in my lifetime

Against the voice that prophesied

Unending failure, and would have

Killed me before life had begun

To reveal its rewards ripening.

To those of you, now withdrawn

From the dance above the hopeless

Abyss, struggling, unseen, unloved,

Or so it seems, I must remind you:

You defeat whatever would have

Diminished you with every image,

Every verse, ever phrase, scribble,

Sound or simple act of kindness

You put out in public. Through it

Someone somewhere is made to

Feel something that they would

Not have otherwise, and subtly

A domino tilts for the better.