Fraught.
Fraught with the challenge of success
Fraught with the meaning of progress
Fraught with discovery
We are fraught wherever we’ve been.
Caught with the ball in our paws
Caught with chains upon our laws
Caught within our own minds
We’ve been caught by the wind.
Wrought out of all our failures
Wrought with unceasing social seizures
Wrought blood and tea
We have wrought too many sins.
Sought out the flies on the wall
Sought out the opinions of a frenzied mall
Sought out hearts and universes
We have sought every nothing.
Bought with water and some bread
Bought with things so easily said
Bought with money and gold
We’re bought, our lives-not ours to win.
All fraught with fear, caught by a fisherman's hook,
Wrought by greed, pride and anger.
All have sought out the secrets, irrelevant or not,
We’ve bought of, and been besot by things, creatures and people
Into whose eyes, we’re afraid to look,
For fear we might see our lot and manner
In reflections-- as is to inspire, to know, to love, we ought,
Hearts, thoughts and lives; only alive to cause many-a-ripple.
“Know we aught?”
“Anything?”
“Anything at all?”
The answer is and always will be
“Naught.”
We know nothing
Of everything and null.
Hence,
Tonight, I am distraught
By things most call an afterthought
And with every “not” in my life I have ever fought.
Still,
Life goes on and on, yet it seems our lot
Is to be forever fraught with the question “what?”
Taking the solution to be what we’ve all been taught,
“Anything and nothing and all.”
We say,
Fully, Finally, Frighteningly,
Fear-fraught,
Even in our own homes.
©2020 by Ayo Okikiolu.
Context:
Fear is everywhere these days...
