Copyright © 2001 Benjamin A. Shelton
This poem is part of a collection of very old poems I wrote when I was fairly young. As a result, the vocabulary and general tone of the poem may not be up to par with many of my newer works.

It is the road, my friend, that is rocky,
Whose winding turns and corners veer,
Twisting and turning and winding,
All about the bumpy path.

But it is in this time, my friend,
This time, when we know not our way,
When the road ahead is shrouded by mist,
Yet further still, we strive.

But where do we go when we cannot see?
Do we continue to walk forward,
Never seeing our steps?
Or wait … wait until the fog has cleared?

This, my friend, I cannot answer,
For the path is shrouded for me too,
And the days appear as nights:
Dark and absent of clarity.

I wish not to see, my friend, a face of tears,
A face without the light of joy,
Or even masked by an ounce of dreariness,
For my heart, too, will weep.

The pain of another’s suffering …
It is like a dagger twisting in my own heart…
Endless and shooting, it beckons me–
To ask for its end.

But the path is always bumpy,
And the road is never straight,
The days are hardly fruitful,
Yet it’s hard for me to wait…