Abandon all hope, ye who enter here*

I am comparable to a single subatomic particle of matter when I view myself from the perspective of the outer edges of this galaxy, millions and millions of miles away. Seen from such a perspective, I am a microscopic particle, small and insignificant. or am I significant, does the light of my being signify a star?

The 'Abandon all hope'  is a line from Dante Alighieri's "Inferno", the final line in an inscription Dante can read as he enters the first gate of hell. Sometimes I have abandoned all hope. Abandoning hope is unpleasant and I avoid that choice as best I can. Sometimes I am happy. The abandoned hope aspect of being me never quite leaves me. Dare I believe my struggle is a universal one, one that merited the attention of many great poets?

And it just occurred to me that Wolfgang von Eschenbach's Parsifal was first published not long after Dante Alighieri's Inferno.  I wonder if von Eschenbach's powerfully meaningful, epic poem was an artistic response to Alighieri's Inferno? The energies alive in both works were certainly alive on earth and within humanity in overlapping time.  I can hear traditional academic types howling at such speculation. I can hear artists and shamans roaring approval of such speculation. I see that my being believes von Eschenbach was responding to the bleak worldview offered by Alighieri with an epic poem that tells us how to achieve the Grail, or the Kingdom of Love. We should not be focused on the rings of hell. We should be loving one another through carefully loving speech, as von Eschenbach advises in his brilliant poem, Parsifal.

I am not a poet. Lately, however, I have taken to using words in a non-prose way. What am I writing?   I do not know. Here are some of my words on my journey in and out of hope.

In and Out of Hope, byTree Fitzpatrick

My sense of wellbeing changes quickly.
I do not dare to trust that what I feel will last
or can last
I love it when I am afloat in a starry galaxy
its a fast hard fall from a starry outer space
where I float amidst delightful beauty and mystery
to fall to earth
thump hard
finding myself in a ring of hell
a low ring
an intensely awful ring
up
then down
then steady nothing
then down maybe
or up maybe
an unchosen rollercoaster ride
chaos emerging?
sound and fury, sturm and drang
meaning not a damn thing
do I matter?
who am I to say I do not?
Who am I to suggest I do?

a circle of hell?
or just a hellish moment
a moment that passes
next, a cool shade
a starry night within
hints of sun rise
stars light joy
then plunging into darkness

on and on around and around