Sleepless Nights and What Can Be Done

I wrote this after a sleepless evening for me and Nissa.  We had just watched The Descendants and were having trouble shaking certain insights into our current situation.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

And about now you sit

Up and say

         Just a minute,

This is hardly fair, this is

Ridiculous, this has gone on for--

Will it go on?  

Eventually I will

Find myself in a position of not

Choosing what time the clock reads

When I wake.  This will

Have to be sorted.  

         But there is nothing

To sort, nothing to analyze

Or decode--only truth and what

Happened and what happens

Next.  

There is, has, and will be

Whether we engage or lie secure

In what has never frightened

Anyone.  

           Fear and grief 

And inane, unalienable 

Horror twist inseparable from 

The giddy, ragged scale plinking out

Across the hardware store

As the clerk deftly mallets 

The paint can's swiftly rotating edge.

Five quick, practiced wallops no more

Novel than a family huddled close

In unadulterated anguish, both so

Telling of our place, our paradox,

And our blind good fortune.