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Impossible
I’m finding it too easy
to tell myself it is too hard.
When facing the end,
that it’s too late to even make a start.
But if we take impossible to mean
that we don’t have a chance,
we have lost sight of how unlikely
it was we would get this far.
The way the single fish
outwits the shark
by sticking with its school.
They way the crescent moon
outspins its dark
to once again be full.
Even winter,
given long enough,
begins to lose its cool.
That which was once exceptional
now barely registers at all.
Flamingos and giraffes
look like they were drawn by a child.
We can’t begin to comprehend
all of the ways this world is wild.
None of them asked if they were possible
before they came to be.
None of them have ceased to exist
by being told they’re make-believe.
The bug who finds it all too much
and tries to shut off everything,
to recover and then summon up
the strength to stretch its wings.
The snake so full of itself
that it cannot help but shed its skin.
Or how, instead of death,
the hedgehog went to bed
and slept till spring.
To think the Earth exists
at this specific distance from the sun.
Down to the angle of the axis
on which everything is spun.
The fact that trees happen to breathe
that which we need inside our lungs.
It would all seem impossible,
had it not already been done.
We are impossible
to everyone who’s ever gone before,
and everyone who’s yet to come
will push impossible some more.
Just as indeed the dos we did
outdo the don’ts we didn’t,
so everything’s impossible
until it isn’t.
The thought of rivers changing course
before somebody gave a dam.
Or that the tide might turn from shore
before a line’s drawn in the sand.
We cannot know how far our actions go,
the impact they might have.
Sometimes the only thing that we can do
is to do what we can.
Just as the night is at its darkest
when it’s introduced to day.
Just as the dry is at its harshest
in the breath before it rains.
It’s easy enough to believe in something
when it’s all okay.
It is when times are at their hardest
that it’s hardest to have faith.
Yet when the light begins to fade,
that’s when we need it the most.
It’s by surviving day to day
that we see seasons evolve.
If there was never any doubt,
there’d be no reason for hope.
It could be too late to do anything –
it sure as hell is if we don’t.
I am tired of the doom and gloom
and self-fulfilling prophecies.
I am trying to find room to bloom
and self-fulfil the opposite.
When it’s an act of revolution
to try to stay remotely positive,
there’s nothing wishy-washy
about opting to be optimists.
Whether a brighter future’s possible
we may not truly know,
but the first step towards that future
is imagining it so.
So as indeed the dos we did
outdo the don’ts we didn’t,
so it remains impossible
until it isn’t.
When it’s over, and we’re no more
than old bones within the ground,
still the soil knows to grow its seeds
from what is broken down.
What is lost is always lost
until the moment it is found.
These things only ever go one way
unless we turn them round.
We are so constantly surrounded
that it’s easy to forget
this world was built upon impossible;
that has not stopped us yet.
So yes, indeed the dos we did
outdo the don’ts we didn’t;
it only stays impossible
until it isn’t.
Day two of the CST Annual Conference 2022 was opened with a performance from Harry Baker.
