I chose the path where many others trod,
In hopes of meeting man as well as God,
And as I ventured forth to start the climb,
A many other foot struck out with mine,
And many voices mingled on the way,
In answer to the calling of the day.
But I took note, as we came to the ground
Where shade and leisure ceased, most turned around
And, waving, wished me well as I went on,
So that, in passing time, I walked alone.
Until I went beneath the heat and rain
With scarcely any soul to share the strain,
And saw where greatest triumph could be found,
There also was the most untrodden ground
And so I learned, not too far from the start,
How rare in hardship is the hardy heart.
– s. Clark
The Courage to Live
He walks through empty pews,
feet crunching on the shards
of stained glass dreams. The news
has reached him: the abyss
gapes and consumes, unmoved
by what one man would miss.
He raises up his head,
though wearied and weighed down,
the smoking dark has bled
beneath the door, but he
looks up to find the light,
though he can barely see
it anymore. The cold
has crept into his hearth.
He feels so very old,
but he is still alive,
sometimes that is the most
that we can do. Survive.
Praying that God will give
the courage that we need
to wake up, and to live.
– s. Clark
Spring
We all must face the winter
Cutting cold into our lives,
At some point we all stand against the storm.
We sink in sorrow’s icy depths
And pray that we survive,
Forgetting how it once felt to be warm.
At times we may freeze over,
Numbing fire from our blood,
Blunting mind and limb with shards of fear,
And some of us have laid ourselves
Beneath the snowy flood,
And never thought the avalanche would clear.
But winter is a season,
It comes only for a while,
Though we bear scars forever to explain.
The light will always follow,
And we learn again to smile,
And flowers of compassion grow from pain.
Leaves of peace will bloom upon
The forest of our grief,
The robin will return again to sing.
Though winter seems eternal,
Do not give it your belief.
Our hearts will always come again to spring.
– s. Clark
He’s workin’ overtime
Far passed what you’d call end of day
Because when clock-out time comes, there’s
No magic to whisk work away
And only him to bear the load,
And no one else who cares to stay
And who can blame them? It’s not like
It gets them extra pay.
– s. Clark
She gazed upon the fractured sky,
And raised her fist in wrath
To see the crooked cracks that marked
The violent aftermath
Of meeting her. Its fabric torn,
This was its fitting fate.
How could it promise endless heights,
And liberty so great?
How could it boast of boundless reach,
Of aeon twixt the stars,
And, having done, so cast her down
And leave her only scars?
A curse upon the painted vault!
A ceiling, nothing more.
Its searing hues of blacks and blues
Have bruised her to the core.
If, looking up, she had not thought
She heard its thrilling call,
Then she perhaps would not have risked
The rise…and more, the fall.
And now she fears to walk the world
Beneath its fissured face,
Condemned to ever scorn it for
So casting her from grace.
And yet… gazing upon the rift,
Despite all she has spoken,
She cannot help but think that if
It cracks…it can be broken.
– s. Clark
Poetry by Shigé Clark 