On Patience

If anyone is impatient, by chance or choice, Or too impatient to read my poems, S/he must read this poem—at any rate! Hopkins once heckled God: “Why do sinners’ ways prosper?” And did not stay for an answer! The answer is: Sinners, whether saboteurs, burglars, assassins, Or any other characters of their ilk, Seem to exercise far greater patience Than virtuous humans! Murderers are an exception, Notorious for their impatience— By courtesy of Daniel Goleman! What is patience? A deceptively simple question. The dictionary equates it with waiting, Putting up with annoyance, And also associates it with work. Its opposite is impatience, Whose synonym is haste; And its symptom restlessness. Patience may be regarded as a frame of mind (Based of course on some personal philosophy) In which to wait and or work: The spider is exemplary in both these senses. Instances of waiting are aplenty: Waiting for solution, resolution, results, etc. But what do we do in the meantime? Only patience and positiveness can tell us. For Michelangelo, as for Newton, Patience meant work, Working presumably against odds And towards perfection, Which, in Gandhi’s idiom, is karma. Work, then, becomes pleasure. But waiting endlessly, eternally (For whatever it may be) Is something inconceivable, at any rate, In God’s scheme of things. Surely, there is some mistake— Maybe in perception, Or interpretation or computation. God may be subtle, as admitted by Einstein, But could never be wicked—as Satan was!