Grace and levity
Story & Background
One of the most painful lessons in life can show up when you have no choice but to let someone navigate the aftermath of an unspeakable incident. Needless to say, it’s not easy to watch someone process a devastating experience, a moment so tumultuous that no words could even capture it.
Unfortunately, there are some things we just cannot erase from our minds, no matter how much we wish otherwise. These kinds of challenging situations are difficult to handle with acceptance, particularly when they involve disturbing acts of violence, injustice, and inhumanity.
If there is any book that managed to capture some semblance of the brutal callousness of what I’m referring to, it would be Khaled Hosseini’s heartbreaking novel, The Kite Runner. Set against the backdrop of a gut-wrenching event in Afghanistan, the story sheds light on the relationship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant.
In it, Hosseini sweeps through moving themes of friendship, betrayal, and redemption. Personally, I felt that the novel also carries underlying messages of grief and loss, which brings me back to this poem I wrote years ago.
I think one of the hardest truths you realize when having to witness such moments like this is that you can’t always step in to save someone from everything. Try as you might, sooner or later, tension and chaos finds its way to the people you love, regardless of what you do to prevent it; it happens all the same.
Nevertheless, what astounds me is the way in which someone can choose to move past the struggle with grace and resilience. I can’t help but feel in awe of those who stubbornly refuse to let any brutal act bear any value to their future life and purpose.
I wrote this poem in tribute to someone important to me; someone who inspires me to this day with her quiet strength and light-hearted levity. This one is for you.
Two Peas
Two peas in a pod
Within this shell of chaos
Once falling. Once struggling.
Amidst deceitful costs.
High numbers converge
To sleekly unveil
Tweaked views of duplicity
Thus wisdom they must steal.
From the hearts of friends
From the stories with good ends
From the warmth of so many
Striking pain with its mends.
For what one had endured
Breaks the heart of another
That desire and wilful hunger
Came to tamper with the younger.
Lust with all its rust
Brought devotions to a must
And all models of guidance
Then tarnished in their dust.
‘Twas a mere coming-of-age rite,’
one meager brain might say
Yet how many could stand strong
Disarming malice in its stray?
How many could plow through
with resilience in the heart?
How many would choose truth
Tearing wrongful schemes apart?
She is beauty. She is joy.
She is wise beyond all ploys.
She inspires. She creates.
Enlightens others with her gaits.
Thus the older smiles to ponder
This miraculous being in wonder
For if it is true what they say
That darkness is absence of light
Then where may one ask
did she look during the night?
Then one cries in earnest reverie
Sees their shell with such epiphany
That the younger’s dear existence
had brought love and hopeful distance
It was the greatest gift of all
Saving sanity from its fall
So that they may emerge.
Out of this cage.
Out of this rage.
And face all as growing sage.
Now fighting. Now striving.
Continuing their act.
Integrity. Solidity.
Virtuous principles intact.
And what nature brings to bay
They shall carry and unite
For the strings of which binds them
Lie endless in their might.
