Half-full or Half-empty? THE PESSIMIST – a Poem by Ernest Alanki

 

The Pessimist

I had a Pessimist friend on Pessimist Road,
Pessimist Road in Pessimist Town,
who had a friend, Worry,
Worry who worried next door.

Together they defeated Positivity,
and brought Negativity to visit.
No hope, no future, no success,
bright days wallowed in dark seasons.

My friend kept dull company for a friend,
a team that made us all worry.
His children moaned and did not play,
his wife screeched and did not laugh.

Stay away from those kids, we admonished our children.
Hide from that man, lest his curse comes to bear upon you.
Talk not to that woman, lest she makes a shrew of you.
In the shadows of our homes we scolded and scowled.

One day my friend walked into the path of a passing car,
and darkness drew a curtain over his life,
minutes stretched hours into days and nights of misery,
as he lay at the mercy of death’s final verdict.

We all waited, secretly contented light was
soon to shine in our little town again.
With him gone, our children would laugh again,
our women merrier our husbands would once more be inspired.

To our shame, my friend’s broken bones mended,
like there never was once a crack in them.
His torn skin healed and left not a scar for memory.
He got up and walked, he not only walked, he ran.

He ran so fast,
he won the annual marathon of hope.
He walked so fast
he overtook time.

We wondered, we pondered,
But the more we beat our heads,
the more my friend achieved, and
the more his fortunes piled.

We soon noticed old Worry, his friend,
was nowhere to be found.
Boredom wasn’t in my friend’s company anymore.
Mirthful children played Merry in his keeping.

His glass, once half-empty was now half-full.
In hard times and in good times he laughed.
In good times and in bad times he toiled for his bread.
He had optimism when Plague visited and left.

Baffled, I asked my friend one day when we
wandered into each other at the greengrocer,
I’m curious, I said.
What happened to the half-empty glass?

Whereupon he hooted with optimism,
sanguinity shone in the place of his
one-time pessimism, his graveness
a lingering bygone.

A sense of purity spoke from the depths of his conscience,
sanity swirled in the breadth of his cheerful eyes,
and wisdom trickled like fountains from his speech.
I’ve altered allegiance, he said.

When death strangled me to the bed,
I realized life is fight or perish,
live or be outlived by the likes of you,
a cheap defeat, a vain victory for you.

In your eyes was hope I’d soon be gone.
In your thoughts I was unworthy of your love.
In the quietness of my weariness my children lamented,
my doleful wife sat undecided to mourn or not to mourn.

I got up and walked … I ran and I’m still running.
No cheap victory for a vain vanquisher.
No reckless friend for a crestfallen worrier,
Old Worry brought nothing but woe.

So I became friends with Optimism, he enthused.
who bestowed upon me Nobility,
and in whose company I now dine and wine,
down Optimist Road, in Optimist Town.

Ernest Alanki holds a PhD in microbiology and has published several peer-reviewed scientific papers under a different name. He finds the challenge of switching between science (dull) and literary (brilliant) writing intriguing. He is currently a researcher at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, Canada.

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