A Lonely Hope

I am not particularly pleased with this poem, so I may revise it at some point. This week has been an absolute crush of responsibility, and my free time has dwindled down to a few spare minutes here and there. But a poem a week is a poem a week, and so I shall not disappoint (at least in one sense...).


A Lonely Hope

Here I wake and hold my breath,
from solemn sleep, close kin of death,
but she refrains from drawing on my debt.

Another hour yet I hold,
to make of it my grist or gold,
to strain against the world in my net.

This is too much to ask of one
whose weakness is the will undone,
whose palaces are set upon the sand.

How can I hope to find, unfound,
the treasures resting in this ground,
the wonders held beyond my grasping hand?

Is it enough that I should keep
from sinking in the soundless deep
and hold my head above the stormy sea?

For I fear, yet, the heavy cost
we pay for what is asked and lost.
No happiness is set a simple fee.

And still for happiness we seek,
as if we were not frail and meek;
we cannot choose the path our feet will tread.

A lonely hope it is, but true,
and this small hope, alone, will do
to separate the living from the dead.