Patience Wins The Race

When the river they trusted betrays its name,
its bed cracked and faithless a drunkard’s old vow.
the young bull snorts fury, takes burden and blame,
and charges the thicket with sweat on his brow.

He hacks a new pathway through briar and flame,
breaks mules, spills blood, loses half of his store;
he staggers in bleeding, yet proud all the same,
mistaking torn flesh for the trophies of war.

The old hands just lower the tailgate and wait,
brew coffee, mend harness, watch buzzards wheel wide;
they’d learned what the greenhorn found out much too late:
some burdens move fastest when laid to the side.

Rain falls in its season; the waters run free.
The wise reach the crossing unbloodied-and early.