I fear heights and highs
as depths and lows come after.
Unshakeable certainties,
absolute truths and forever sureties scare me,
in my head, the world is an eternal question mark.
Coffee and the endless possibilities of a new day
delight me in the mornings. I dislike too much sun
or not enough rain and afternoons that exhale gray.
Seasons move into one another, cold and warm,
warm and cold, months alternating in front of my eyes
that follow the unceasing circle of faraway nature.
So, I imagine a short poem,
for not having many likes or dislikes,
life’s evenness makes it fair in my mind.
Thus, I write my uncertainties, regrets
and misgivings mixed with solace,
peace and quietness.
My life is a balance of contrasts,
swinging like a pendulum,
back and forth and with each turn,
left or right, I open my ears
to Mozart, Chopin and Bach,
my eyes to Picasso, Van Gogh and Miro
and my sense of smell to the fragrances of my mother’s cooking.
And these music, colors and scents arouse my spirit.
For life won’t become more beautiful
because of my sensorial experiences, but
they add pleasure to my existence.
Rejoicing with that, as blues and grays are part
of the same rainbow and sunny days and rainy nights
are in the same spectrum of weather, I live these differences
as if I hadn’t noticed them
and that brings me comfort.
Cristina DeSouza is a physician and poet who holds a MFA in creative writing/ poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has had multiple poems published by several literary magazines such as Sheila-Na-Gig, Raw Journal of Arts, Poetry Pacific, Edify, to cite a few in the US. She also writes in Portuguese and has had poems published by Mallamargens, Capitu, Vidraguas, Macondo in Brazil. She had a book of poems published by The Main Street Rag in November 2019, titled The Grammar of Senses. Her email address for contact is colo2309@gmail.com.