Friday, August 7, 2009

Poetry Friday - To want what won't be given

To want what won't be given is a foolish
thing, since life so often makes us wait,
then gives us nothing, but we are a mulish
species. Stubborn is a human trait.

I save myself in hopes of some great task:
I count my steps, I study deprivation,
I circumscribe even my dreams. I ask
for nothing, yet I hope for my salvation.

Some love is keeping faith. Some faces haunt
us for a lifetime, flouting reasoning
and teaching us humility. To want
what won't be given is a human thing:

to aim at targets we can't even see,
succeed or fail, but never bend the knee.

21 May 1979