Serpentine
often drowsy but never fully asleep
rousing from its torpor at the most inconvenient of times
to writhe and twist within me.
I am a worrier. It’s what I do.
As a mother, it is my job to anticipate trouble
taking both the point and rear-guard positions in my childrens’
sometimes zig-zagging advance through life,
and I take that job seriously.
The day my first child was born,
the day they handed me that sticky little thing
and said “You’re in charge now”
I began to worry.
That night in the hospital I worried that they were paging an x-ray tech to the NICU
because someone had dropped my baby.
I knew it was silly
but I also know that a piece of my heart was suddenly living outside me
and I could never really protect it any more.
Life is a high-wire act,
and all the safety nets I had ever worked with were stripped away.
The snake began to uncoil within me.
I know that constant worry is useless.
I understand that this restless concern over nothing in specific serves no purpose
except to deepen the wrinkle between my eyes,
rob me of sleep and disturb my digestion.
No anxiety over someone’s health ever did a thing to keep them healthy,
no unease over a lack of direction suddenly filled another person
with determination and purpose.
But there it is, and there it remains
a parasite that takes up a little too much room,
leeches energy and brightness
leaving me afraid to relax for fear it will suddenly strike.
I have learned to live with it, to placate it in small ways-
music, meditation, chocolate.
I cannot remove it but I can, mostly de-fang it,
prevent the freezing burn of its venom from paralyzing me.
I know that it is a weakness.
I have been told that it demonstrates a profound lack of faith,
that such worry is an affront to God, who surely could handle all my problems
if only I would turn them all over to Him.
I have tried praying to God to keep me from worrying
about the funny noise my daughter’s car is making
but the inner knowledge that God will neither repair the transmission
nor rescue her from the side of the road if she is stranded on a dark night
guaranteed the failure of that attempt.
And so I recite the liturgy of all the things that I do not have to worry about…
… poverty, homelessness, alcoholism, abuse, addiction, cancer…
yes, I know I am blessed, thank you.
But I know it could all be wiped away in a heartbeat.
.And so, I worry.
Just a little bit…. around the edges.
Despite this weakness, I am strong enough in most ways:
I appreciate life’s joys both large and very small.
I sing and write, bake bread, walk the dogs
and mostly I ignore that sliding of scales deep within me
as the snake stretches, restless, always a bit unsettled,
looking for a new fear to sink its teeth into.
I am smart enough not worry too much about why I can’t stop worrying,
strong enough, at least, to shoulder my own burdens
rather than shift them to someone else
Tracy Meisky is a poet, writer, singer, songwriter and all-around boat rocker from way back. Feel free to look around, but if you break it, you bought it.