Patience Poem by Christopher Shepheard

Though marked and measured, mountainous the path
That patience preaches — ligature and lath
To hold up heaviness in harness — moulds who moon-
Rake, trudge, with sun-scorched shoulders, dune upon dune.

And is the map spot moist or dusty dry?
Better to down-drop, lassitude, unwind and die
Without the flail of hope — the machination
Morning-to-be-torn? Worn, wefted, wound determination

Glooms like a doom dream waking will dissolve
When red-hot truth drops twitch the sleeper, selve,
Embody that remoter throb that thunder-
Like on mountaintop portends to chevy under
Deluge drowning, un-enduring fright. It is effaced fear
To those who wait not, know not, feel not, only hear.

(1995)