Crisp: Housecleaning

Steeped in brooding,
Deeply despondent
And loathing everything,
Pushing away from the nightmare,

Trying to break through
The heaviness,
But only sinking even further
Into listlessness;

Concluding, ‘Oh, the futility of even trying,
As the gloom goes on to the horizon;’
These moods, these dark attitudes,
As thick as the cloud bank zooming past

That from my window
I viewed with dismay, thinking,
‘Oh, woe! How will I ever
Be able to get through this?’

Then suddenly
It occurred to me,
‘But these same clouds
Inhabit the sky.’

All words and thoughts fled
As if swept away by the wind,
And the spaciousness inside
Extended in all directions,

And then I saw that my mind too was
As wide as the infinite sky!
But then again, I saw the despair,
That it was still there, oh yes!

And so were the clouds,
But they no longer seemed
Separated from the blue,
I could now see how these two exist:
Intermingled and yet distinct.