Sonnet 2

This burden, that you place upon my back, grows heavier with time's passing, pressing hand. My strength is stretched; my faith fails on the rack of knowing that, in spite of all, like sand escaping from a powerless, open sieve, in two short words, from blameless lips and hearts, my hopes might vanish; all that I believe sunk like a wreck marked, mouldering, on the charts. Sometimes the fear is physical and makes my leaden legs to drag, my heart to sink within my chest; sometimes the form it takes, cold, black and dead, clouds out my power to think. These times the thought of what may soon be lost ten million times can multiply the cost. Kim Helen James 11/8/95