This Is What Life Does

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This is what life does:
it brings us, over and over again,
to the same place.

Election night, 2008: such joy,
tears of relief and hope
as the Obama family,
so beautiful, with such grace,
walked out onto the stage.
Class act. Hope for the masses.
Joy.

Election night: 2016.
In deep discouragement,
I turn off the tv,
and go to bed, scarcely believing
in the choice America has made,
waking next morning to
my worst redneck nightmare.

Even so, I never dreamed
how bad it would get,
how far from democracy,
how near to autocracy and fascism,
we would travel.

Those four years changed me,
changed us all, revealing
a country's soul split in two.
I walked farther away from hope
than I have ever been,
and then turned back.

Now here I am again: there never was
a more important election,
a more consequential choice to make.

The numbers are close and for two days
they do not budge, as the weary vote-counters
thumb through the piles,
the orange man bleets and blusters,
and we all hold our breath,
all around the world,
to see what our next four years will be like.

I only know I can't take four more years
of what we've lived through.
Neither can the planet.

"Move into the magic and the beauty,"
my writing coach encourages.

The magic: if I could look at the screen 
and have the blue numbers say 270.
The beauty: this morning's walk 
on the beach; the eternal waves
rolling in, rolling out, endlessly breaking
in white foam on the sandy shore.

This is what life does. It brings you
to the same sorrows, says
here you are again.

It also brings you back
to magic and joy,
to lift your heart
and enliven your feet
along the winding path.

Inspired by "The Return" by Ruth L. Schwartz, and Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner. "Move into the magic" is from Laurie; the italicized lines are Ruth L. Schwartz's.