When

When do you let it go

Or employ it with a flourish

The past it shapes you, now and in times to come

When do you come to a stop

Or push beyond

The pain so recurrent, the suffering your choice

When do you follow it

Or take the alternate path

The beat a ever-guiding, or conventional too much

When do you eat it

Or wait for more and save

Marshmallow soft and tasty, sticky coloured stuff

When do you make a change

Or stubbornly stand your ground

Evolution constantly - or holding back the waves

Lying or a truthing

Each one it has its time

Destination or the journey

We circle round again

Idealism, cynicism

Have moments here and there

Waiting, coming, going

We may do without a care

There is a moment to destroy

So much still to create

Multiple voices or just one

The option always awaits

Then an instant when to share

Or out of sight a time to hide

Black or white or grey or colour

Song of palette, dance of brush

And smiling, frowning or mouth quite straight

Emotions felt, passion disloyal

Fear and hope they ring their bells

Rhyme and reason sometimes clang

Experience teaches, innocence drives

Come each instant in our lives

When we draw upon the lesson

When we rise, and fall again

When the dawn quits every night

When we fight and reconcile

We simply move, in a complex world

Searching the meaning

When

18 July 2020

The image was created by Esra Gumrukculer for this poem which was published in Sauti: Poems of Healing, contributed by UN staff for World Mental Health Month 2020