Free Form Poem: "When..."

"When..." has a strange origin. The poem was first written about five years ago as a response to an assignment in a Creative Writing class. We read the poem "Touch Me" by Stanley Kunitz, and were told to pick out the verbs from the piece and create our own poems using those verbs. I came up with "When...". I've rehashed the poem a bit since first writing it, resulting in what is below, but have also tried to keep as close as I can to what I originally intended the poem to mean. It's difficult to do that several years later, but "When..." continues to be a poem that I am proud of. As for the companion photo, the picture was taken several years ago in St. John. I unearthed it from the depths of a USB drive, and thought that it might fit nicely alongside "When...". I'll let you be the judge of that, though. Enjoy!

When the stars can touch the ground below

When the winds of a past cease to blow

When all the world is still for you

When old memories scatter and your mind begins anew,

When all hope is lost in bitter days

When your world is tossed in dark ways

When you’re staking out a lost source of pride

When all the world has kneeled down and cried,

When you feel your heart is about to burst

When you’ve marveled at your survival of the worst

When your tears pour out in thin waterfalls

When Destiny makes its final calls,

When black Chaos stirs up a terrible storm

When you let all fall away from the norm,

When against the flow of time you begin to thrash

When all woods creak and burn to ash,

When you forget to remember your own might,

And when you’re afraid to touch the night,

That’s when I’ll be there to remind you of the light.