Persistence with choked breath

is mere folly; true, here are the seeds,

black and misshapen, that I cast

To sprout in unhappy soil.

And true there is little way in which

to reach into this saintly space

and pull the perfection through.

 

I once tried to array myself

in the words and deeds of truth and justice.

Would that now were so, could that

complex translation float seamless free,

and grant the strength deserting me.

Dust, layers, surround and muffle,

brushed off but ingrained in a very skin

that cannot detach by word or whim.

And the eyes from all around now narrow,

day by day, to observe as one would,

in darts of drying sunlight...turn

...to stone.