thick darkness arrives at dawn:
making dizzy dunes of my cumulative defeats.
It asks,
“Are you afraid of me?”
I ask back,
“Do I have to be?”
Undaunted than most,
many a time and oft:
by a small detachment here,
manifold moments’ mayhem
not claiming me —
I manage to walk safe along
the tempest’s apparent edge.
From my own extended example
of sharing the shock-blows
with myself: I carry on,
then sit well-back to invite
another surviving chance.
When served twice as much venom,
I still find the needed cure!
1996
Geeta Chhabra
