I took the hope you offered, clenched in fists
Still dried with blood and tears and without trust.
No matter how I walked, each step was risk
Without the father I had reckoned just.
Forward and still forward into night
So irretrievably the past pressed in;
My heart I'd hid in shadows from your sight
Began to beat in double time. Begin
The work you started, over; carry me
As I have carried love and joy and lost--
But do not lose me, do not lose her: we
Are cradled in a promise, crushed and tossed
Forever in the hands of neutral will
And I am begging love will win out still.
postscript
I've realized that in the last year, whatever my intentions are to write, however much I assume I can just pick up a pen or a device and create poetry, the struggles I've faced have not enlivened the poet in me but squashed her utterly. But once in awhile the desperation pushes through and a little piece of my heart comes out in words. Perhaps in time I'll be prolific again. Thanks to Parsat for the three month sub to give me a push to keep trying.