Small Mercies - Jan 9 2021

 

Small Mercies

Jan 9 2021

This far down

there is only light

when the sun is at its height.

So in high summer

for an hour or two at most,

while in winter

there's only a softening

in the small keyhole of sky.

I feel for crevices and handholds

but there is just unstable earth,

damp and cold

and smelling of rot and mould.

Dirt rains down on me.

The ground beneath is hard,

pebbled with sharp embedded stones.

They say you dug yourself in

now claw your way out

or resign yourself to the grave;

you can pray, if you like

but don't count on salvation.

Instead, I curl up and dream.

Of a verdant sun-kissed upland

a warm bed of grass.

Of my lover at my side

and her lovely lilting laugh,

of life ever-after

and no need to ask.

Until a shaft of light intrudes

and I'm rudely jerked awake.

The sun has passed

directly overhead

and I add another day.

Pleased

at how patient I've become.

Grateful

for this small mercy of warmth,

and that the rain

which can't hold off forever

has spared me so far.

I've often said that gratitude and forgiveness are key ingredients of happiness. Even here, in this metaphorical pit of hopelessness, survival depends on gratitude for the smallest thing. And if not divine absolution, then at least some kind of self-acceptance.

It's also an extreme exercise in reframing, of the “could always be worse” variety. Perhaps this is one way pessimism serves mental health. Not just when it can be characterized as “defensive pessimism”, in which catastrophizing prepares you to respond to misfortune, but as a way to salvage something from the worst circumstance. And even if optimists are also inclined to think it could always be worse, I suspect they lack the imagination to plumb the depths of just how bad worse can get!