what battles we fight

 our surface, our depths

as long as we’re on the surface,

we can imagine that the order before us

also reaches deep and that all is “fine,”

when asked “how are you?”

I can reply “fine” or “I’m good,”

or I can judge that the questioner

is ready for a fuller answer,

and how much fuller I judge on the fly,

I look at another,

and I can imagine the battles

that the other is fighting 

that I know nothing about,

our lives are full of effort,

and I can feel wonder at how well

the other moves across the slick surface

of work, of family,

of keeping the balls we see in the air,

and then I wonder what is going on

underneath what I can see,

how much effort it takes to stay

both on the surface we readily share with others,

and within the depths where fear, and doubt, and love,

pull us into the hardest struggles

that is who we are at our deepest,

and now privacy trumps inquiries,

the pandemic denying us easy access

to what is going on with a colleague or a student

when they are not here and maybe fighting battles

vital to them, but hidden from us,

great wrenching sobs call to me

when I can let myself deal with my own battles

that I often deny, repress, avoid noticing,

the depths call us,

the surface calls us,

and we prefer the surface.

by Henry H. Walker

January  25, ‘22