the psyche's immune system

buffeted

as my psyche is buffeted by event, by loss, by doubt,

my defenses seem to whirl away in the buffeting:

holes appear in my sureness,

and an anxiousness grabs at me,

often an unease that works to deny me sleep

as if I fear the revelation 

my unconscious will well up into dark dream,

like with my body’s immune system, 

where I marshal defenses of cell upon cell that I send out

to keep the physical intact from invaders that seek their will, not mine,

my psyche seems to marshal thought and feeling to reknit any unraveling 

so that in the morning I often feel more whole and sure,

I also need to vent the steam, 

so I find ways to cry with abandon

for only the release into sorrow

can remind my psyche 

that I truly feel and know the buffeting,

in the day, in the night,

I hope to laugh at my demons

and to feel a wholeness rebuild within me

so that I live true to the moment as long as I can,

doubt and fear can be the enemy

that drain away my energy to buck up,

to persevere, to live the light,

the dark will have its time too soon,

“not now, not yet,” I work for my psyche to assert.

by Henry H. Walker

January 23, ’15