A Figure Lone and Lost

I saw sadness clinging to an age-worn face

Its life-song spent, suffering more the loss

In eyes that once had turned away from grace,

Stood by the river of change that all must cross

And had no strength to swim nor find a way

To ford the rapids of his loneliness

And from the easy paths turn away

Daring the summit peaks and the abyss

To seek the spirit's freedom and exhaust

The karma of human error and conceit.

I left him then a figure lone and lost

The work for which he came incomplete.