Bring Back My Smile Poem by Margaret Alice Second

The New Year unfolds within the same safe
routines and calm evenings, kids ignoring us,
a colleague discussing a terrible Christmas,
crying, hyperactive family visiting - while
others were having mini-strokes; the French
text on my desk: I need emotional incentives

To carry on, hoping that satisfaction in work
done will give a feeling of accomplishment
and the joy in searching for magical objects,
rekindling the ability to discover trinkets to
offer as gifts sharing my delight with other
people; will return - but I feel quite bereft

Our security guard company is gone - there
are no friends to greet with laughter and fun
at the entrance - the stuffy office is a prison,
yet I DO count my blessings: It's a privilege
to have a job and colleagues, to know I can
depend on them to be fair and hard-working

Sigh - good grief, if this isn't the most boring
little life I've ever heard of - I would like to
know what is, not even Bert Kaempfert's
Swingin' Safari and That Happy Feeling
have been able to bring back my smile…

[6 January 2015]