Exhaustion of a Pawn

I am completely exhausted from being lost in translation, a year of suffering from fears generated by past illusions, from modern society and from machines. So instead of my own poem... here are words of my dear father... for today.
~Emily Loren Moss Ferrell

BLUE HERON

The river does not surge
And the shore swings like a cracked pendulum
Against a sun frozen on the horizon.
On one leg the blue heron keeps his balance.
I cannot keep mine.

The river is motionless
Its fish paralyzed
And far down the shore toward the point
A small woman covered in an orange afghan
Sits dozing by an eternal pond
Her daughter in her arms speaking nonsense.

Meanwhile the infinite snores.

I must bear the fate of my favorite coat
My father wore again and again
To walk on these cold shores
The small woman sits happily with her child
As a gnat soars
Far above the marsh
To be swallowed by a wren.

Am I wrong again and again
To make wide circles around that place
So afraid of them?

I know that I must learn
That ponds dry and rivers turn
And a gnat may swallow the sun

I must bear the fate of mother and child the blue heron ignores.

Staving but never slow
Like a rabbit in deep snow
I know the thing hated most I will become

Meanwhile the infinite snores.

~Richard Wilson Moss