Persistence, That Fool

The imprints of little feet in a felicitous field of wheat
Know the weight on afternoon’s shoulders of toil’s burning heat

Fingers bruised and temples wrinkled from frowning
Till the reeds are low and the stalks are down

The master’s truck is waiting at that end with the ploughs
While a crowned father lies drunk in a faraway alehouse

That is the design of this precarious wold seen from distant fences
That have wept not for a callow limp, born now, dead then

It is persistence, that fool, that grants clemency
For such a small price as the surety of faith

Insofar as the loss of all doubt is guaranteed and the alliance
To piety and the fealty to grace is  native trait

Even as age lends maturity and borrows heavily
From innocence, it has only persisted in its duty

That ensures that the leaves of spring will wither without halt
And tomorrow the cold winds of winter will blow surely

A ripple on which rides the kingdom’s earth knows the pull
Of its mortal end, surrenders, and is pardoned as beautiful

Little droplets of immortal purity trickle with rancor
Into the ocean of solitude, in some City with ripening fervor

As schemers and conspirators, thieves and sloughs
As the wings of change and old broken boughs

The farm is readied and seeds made to rest in wombs pure
That endure, for money does not rest, money resists for sure

It is persistence, that fool, that lures hunters to their prey
Just as the prey to its escape, a calamitous charlatan of chance

Waylaying men already broken from the path of men
Spurred unto gold, woman, drink, nay, every mirthful dance

This is reward and reward not at all lest it remains idle
In his keeping and labors ceaselessly in your stone halls

For he who knows not what he awards must not award at all
He who bestows the prize must neither heed the receiver’s call