ORANGE UMBRELLAS*

Dead Portuguese poets

and orange umbrellas...

were lost to me

when the rains came.

The tour left without me

because I was too busy 

not paying attention

to the experience

I came for. 

A sodden map in hand,

drenched to the bone,

I cried until I laughed

and heard a voice say:

There’s nothing

 wrong with you. 

You are human.

Welcome to humanity.

And then remembered,

it was Pessoa who said: 

Ships among tempests 

and not a one 

has sailed to a port 

that has not known 

its share of suffering.

*Inspired by Susan Cain's, Bitter-sweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole