A WALK...
I’ll walk and I’ll work,
And I still won’t get there,
For I’ll walk in a sinking sand
Where the sun will smile,
Like a snake in the valley
Of the shadow of death,
And evaporate my sweat to ethereal vapor
Even before it drops from my half-closed eyes.
It will observe my toil in quietude,
And adorn that sinister smile again.
He will not mock my toil, though—
He could care no less about that.
What he’ll mock is my destination;
What he’ll mock is my sweat—
The mechanism of toil.
As it becomes vapor.
And how dare I—how dare it, more likely?
How dare I seek to ascend the heights?
And become one with these clouds of dusk,
And make them clear again.
I am no prophet, yet here’s a great matter.
Perhaps I will perhaps I will not.
At any rate I’ll walk, and I’ll work,
And I still won’t get there,
But maybe, just maybe,
These dripping sweat will,
Before we both fall back to the sand again.