Too drab a plant
[Under construction: 1 June 2005]
I wrote this poem in about 1984, having given up school teaching the previous year. I had no idea in which direction to move. The deeper into depression I sank, the less I realised how depressed I was. I did not take medication, and as I did not feel suicidal, I am glad about this. I was depressed in response to my life circumstances, not because of a chemical imbalance. Over a period of several years I was able to make sufficient necessary inner adjustments, and learned to find the inner strengths with which I now closely identify. I believe that medication would have prevented this process. In fact, no one knew that I was depressed, which is probably just as well, for they could not have helped, and I should have felt guilty at the time. I am also thankful that I burdened no one, for had I done so I should be feeling guilty now. I realise, in writing this preamble that I have much more to write about depression.
Too drab a plant to have a name,
Too weak to live in open air,
Too unimportant to live in any other
Than the darkest corner
Of the dreariest room.
Never-passing time
Ever passing.
Ceaselessly,
Timelessly ticking.
Here: heavy, dull, grey air.
Beyond dusty net curtain:
Monotonous sheet of clouds.
Cold, miserable weather.
Sitting in this dark and dismal corner,
Sometimes looking.
