Seeds of hope lie sprinkled in the wind

Seeds of hope lie sprinkled in the wind

Hope is rooted in the amazement of poetry
Which lies in a grotto beneath
The rational world
Which only desperados
Dig deep enough to discover

But you did
Dig, digging deep down
Beneath your bipolar meds
Into the utter astonishment
Which inhabits the everyday

Which you discovered on a Rotorua lake
And visiting the Queen
In Buckingham Palace
Where her corgis
Scattered at your approach   

Just how much do we owe
To the trials and ecstasies
Of those blessed and cursed
With the dancing highs
And gloomy lows
Of bipolar?

Particularly the poets
Who, like you, became healers
Born of the sheer miracle
Of necessity

Scattering seeds of hope
Across bookshelves

And into the vast wind
Inhabiting all life

~ 

I have met many people with bipolar disorder. I am also aware of many poets who were affected by bipolar disorder; some, like 80-year-old Natalie Browning, who was part of the Takaka poetry group that met in the Library, were very good poets.