A Poem by vison

So, you know, I’m a common person.
I can’t live on high all the time;
I can't stay under either,
I’m made of something that makes me float
Up from the deep dark pit at the bottom.
Here I am, stuck in dailiness:
A woman whose work is not only never done,
This woman doesn’t want it to be.
Queens and Saints went mad, they didn’t cook
And do laundry. They sat on golden chairs
Or lolled about in damp caves being Holy,
And thought they were like men.
Sisters, I got news for you:
Washing clothes and stacking dishes
Are charms against madness and despair.

Here I am at the end of a long heavy day,
A day I carried around for months,
A day I turned over and over in my hands
Trying to get it to be right.
But days, like the weather, have their own rules
And they proceed from dawn to dark
Exactly as if I wasn’t even here.
This is a lesson I haven’t yet learned
Though something has been trying to teach me.
I’m used to stacking dishes and folding clothes.
But sometimes you can’t stack or fold,
You can only endure the day from dark to sun
And back again. The best thing is,
It’s never as bad as you thought it would be,
Except when it’s worse.

~Sheila Engh