Sometimes – Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.
I’m not a fan of optimism. It strikes me as irrational.
But this poem, fully recognizes every goddamn thing usually does go wrong and reminds us that sometimes the world steps forward into the light and things go right. We survie a new day better than the previous one. Sometimes.
What I find most encouraging is that those sometimes moments seem to have more power than I give them credit for. Because the arc of history suggests things are improving for humankind. Slowly creeping toward a place that in the exhausting daily battle of today’s world affairs it seems impossible to achieve.
Fewer children die, more diseases get eradicated or controlled, there is less war. It feels impossible to believe but it is true. And it was achieved by just a few people. A small percentage of us took initiative. A few people were the sometimes and things got better. The power of those moments of sometimes is great.
It’s important to remember when the world feels like it is sliding irrevocably into a pit of despair. There is a crack of light in the distance. The darkness, while deep and present, is not complete.
It's a Thought 