Standing in Sunshine

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unique feelings,

vicarious -

of duty

fear- 

loss – 

waste -

achievement?

an anxious calm

feelings fed from

another’s memory

recollecting times

never known

places never been

loves never kissed

horrors never seen

pains never felt

all seen in the eye of the

collective mind.

Feeling pride in the

intangible

touching that past

with another’s finger;

transcendent connections

to the grey

spurning spines

carrying static tingles

deep to the

meat of your chest.

without manifest memory

family stories of

what granddad did in the war,

there exists this

celestial kinship.

searching… in that

genealogical gulf

for the stories
that connect us

to history’s winding coil

that elusive intuit which

may just inform us

transform us

confirm us

in our beliefs

expectations

understandings

Looking;

for explanations
of what we’ve become

of what we are

of what we think   we are

of what we imagine   we are

others may think    we are

that virtue that would be -

'tae see oor-selles as others see us.’*

'what did  granddad do in the war?'

He stepped out of his sunshine -

so we could stand

in ours.

 *From the poem, ‘To a Louse’ – Robert Burns