NO SHORTCUT.

Seneca writes in one of his letters,

quite Stoically stolid,

something to this effect…

depending if your Latin’s solid:

A gem cannot be polished without friction,

nor a human being without trials.

Can you push back regret

or shame or lenses upon the past

that really get you nowhere and at last

come to accept that you are here

because of the year?

How you thought it might go,

it more often did not. Time

passed, circumstance interrupted,

ground down clear your false confidence.

It was replaced it with the shine

at last of endurance, sunk cost,

and hope in spite of loss.

There was no shortcut

to your strength inside. But I see it.

It takes time and some measure of chaos

to shine a rock.

You are dreaming again,

you are starting to come alive. Go be it.

It took violence, confusion, betrayal,

and time on the clock

to create uncommon shine

and a glow in a heart of stone

enviable to every plain rock

never beat to hell and back.