Lost Poem by Richmal Byrne

On the road to Golgotha
I lost my way,
The signs were there alright,
Maybe I didn’t have the stomach for the fight
For what, I thought, that I professed...
All ways seemed stony,
All paths converged but lonely,
Empty, mean they were...
I stumbled over loose flints that other feet dislodged,
And down through barren, lonesome valleys,
Neither sheep and goats,
Nor pursuing shepherd with his dog,
No travellers, walkers,
Merchants with their flashy garments,
No soldiers with their sharp armaments,
No brides weighed with paraphernalia,
No reveller’s drunken saturnalia,
Nothing but
This weight of wood,
A heavy heart,
A chest like lead,
The feeling that there is no-where else to go...