Dark Fruits

Too much ease and too much shelter

Encourages thick weeds to grow,

And the grassy fertile glade

Can make thinking dull and slow.

Then comfort, working like a drug,

Entraps and enslaves the mind,

Whispering those sweet and easy lies

That we are not the slaves of time.

Too much struggle and too much pain

Can strip the spirit bare

And the wind, precipice and sliding rock

Engender hopeless despair.

Then bitterness, that destructive blight,

Makes imagination dark and sour

And a mind stripped of joy and hope

Is bereft of all its healing power.

But struggle, difficulty and pain

Can also be our closest friends,

Directing both mind and character

Towards a most desired end.

It is through these dark fruits

We the seeds of compassion sow

And in ways mysterious and strange

Empathy and love germinate and grow.