How To Survive by Martin Willitts Jr

                       Gabriel Caparó CC



​How to Survive
 
                                          It is easy to surrender,
let the world take us,
                                          walking into that darkness,
until we notice:                           spackling stars;
                dawn lurking in the background,
promising warmth from our childhood memories.
 
                 The chill is not so intense then. A flush
                                 of possibilities from the impossible --
we think it can’t last.
              We have experienced the shortness
                            rising certainty from blue shadows.
 
Our melancholy emerges fluid, illusionary, and if
                we catch the cresting wave,
                we could either drown in it
                                                                         or swim in it.
 
Soft, wind-blown,                          many small thoughts
inside one idea,
             one emotion surrounding it
             breaking into many.
 
We need to see this with all-knowing eyes,
               tasting how fragile the world has become,
                                               its slightness,
then feel                                            which is comfortable,
 
              then choose that one, or              that one,
                                        or that,
holding back the rest.




Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 20 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent book is "Unfolding Towards Love" (Wipf and Stock, 2020). He was a Field Medic in Vietnam and he runs a PTSD group. 
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