“The Optimist”

I cannot spend my days counting losses   
focusing on withered branches and leaves   
opening my heart to your dark decay   
I refuse to bear your broken crosses   
over my threshold—into my beliefs   
by allowing your destruction to stay   
like a hurricane that swirls and tosses   
my gentle soul upon wild waves that heave   
and boil, pulling me under and away   
to the mirage of  dead albatrosses   
where your empty eyes gaze restless and grieve   
for the simple joy of a sun drenched day   

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman