‘Her breast is full of diverse load,
And she treads a lonely road. No help shall grace he path.
I wish her the strength of her God.
She staggers, limps, drags her woes along,
And faces the blizzards that blow amid the afflicted throng
with whom she dwells.
But she goes. May she go well.
Her home is of a hard place; she was born of a hard birth,
But there’s not a heart more tender than the one inside her breast.
Straight as a bone, she lingers on. Grease to her heels.
But they’re covered up in dust; the red dust of her weary way,
The dust of spiteful glances; she’s lithe and lay.
Her idea vanishes; her theme disappears, but she’s marching. May the drums beat for her.
A word or two to her lonely ear,
To ring in her haunted heart—she just may hear.
It’s good she knows you read her life, you watch and pray.
Her cause is right, and her brow is meek,
Her people knew this and bid her speak.
“Young indeed I am,
And young I mean to stay.
But already as I speak,
My youth has worn away.
You say my load is heavy, but you gave it to me.
My step is slow, but you killed my spirits.
My fingers are frail,
But who froze my blood?
You wonder at my words.
That’s your lot; I wander through the woods.
But because you follow me close behind,
Let me open up your mind…”
So she told him of things both high and low and most secret,
Of pain and skin and bullets and courts
And a forgotten home that still smelled sweet.
She told him of kingdoms greater than his,
And drew their signs into his mind.
And when at length she no longer spoke,
Our blessed King from his dream awoke.
“We must face her every day,” he said in the city halls.
“She is challenge, hard work, and reward.”
We scratched it on the painted walls.
“She is living for the right to fight and fighting for the hope of life,
She’s our conscience, weaknesses, and the undying strength
Of those whose dying is their very fight.
We must face her, but first we must find her.
She guides not. Leads not. Only dares.
Dares us to become ourselves.”
Our King met her in a dream,
whom I have known six hundred and forty-four long years.’
***
So a strapping youth once said
while caught under a knee,
choking on hope
and coughing his story.
_
Published in Resilience: A Collection, 2021.