Eternity

You lace your shoes, adjust your watch and think
Reluctantly that somewhere in between
The pain, the searing heat, or daunting cold,
The scalded lungs, the tortured quads, you’ll find
A moment’s cerebration where your brain
Unbidden brews a wort of stimulants
To flood your body’s engineering so

The nerves and fibres, molecules and cells
Agree to work together on the route
Instead of stabbing one another in
Their aching chemistries so ill equipped
To handle damage of this kind when you
Are focused on survival having run
The arse out of your dreams and left behind

All hope of pulling off a better time
Because there’s always one more ‘Well, because…’
To fill your trophy cabinet’s boundless shelf
Of disappointments brought on by a lack
Of willingness, or discipline, or grit
That separates doing from achievement
As if distinctions of this sort make sense

With mountains run, and further hills to go
On slopes that loom like Everest except
Sufficient sense remains to let you grasp
That hills have ups and therefore downs which means
The climb once done will give you a descent …
An end … and exhaustingly the chance to
Unlace your shoes, reset your watch, and think …

ROGER G McDONALD