Colours

I'm supposed to be
preparing a portfolio
of work for a deadline
about to whoosh
over my head, leaving
me diminished by
my lack,
feeling stupid.

The magic button works
the first time; this nihilism
requires the severest application
of cognitive behavioral therapy,
self-medication or
total despair.

One thing is certain:
dissonance with everyone else.
No-one exists precisely
on my plane;
there will only be
rescuers and the indifferent.

What better thought is there now than to pick up poetry and convince oneself that the time will be well spent.  'Colours' by Yevtushenko

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.