Guilt
I feel a sense of responsibility for every disaster.
What did I do to cause it?
What did I not do to cause it?
What could I have done to prevent it?
What did I not do to prevent it?
Every calamity comes with a burden of guilt.
That’s just the way things are,
That’s just how it goes,
The way the cookie crumbles.
C’est la vie.
Q. E. D.
The arrow of blame and concurrent guilt
Spins round and round,
“Not I. Not I. Not I.”
Only to stop with unerring certainty
At me.
With an overburden of empathy
I understand the logic of this.
But often a certain resentment bubbles up
That pricks at my sense of justice and injustice
And prompts me to ask “Why?”
After a time, the question becomes superfluous.
It has been asked and answered too many times
To have any real meaning.
It simply “Is”.
So I hoist up my pack,
Set my sights on the nearby horizon,
And as Atlas bearing the world on my shoulder,
I grow accustomed to the weight
And carry on.