Toil Another Day

A chef would look at his ladle and skillet
A farmer his reaper
A dreamweaver his wand
A mother her cot
A wolf his sled
A lion her empty cave
A casanova her photograph

Those eyes would look the same
If one could gently step into that very second
and foregoing all the rest.
Those eyes would look to a remembrance
would in a place long past, revisit a warmth
a grip in a deep recess in the lung a
heaviness just below the navel
once was so vivid, believable
a voice that had called, and they responded
a conversation that had brought them to their feet
a touch that had caused them to yearn
a suffocation that had made them breathe
yet in all that sullied and staled in a chamber of rot

Those eyes, would tell you they had not stopped hoping
they might say it to themselves even.
In that very second that we saw
their eyes that glimmer wasn't pretense 
just that which was once lustrous, rust made claim

Remembering the day after day of a disappointing kind
come sunset which no satisfaction endowed upon them 
return of a net with not a flake of sardine scales

and on this day.....
the eyes would not return to a gleam
the eyes would not be scrubbed clean
the breath would not be heaved with stoicism
but the scent of a dried out, burned pot of stew

they would surrender to a relenting eye lid
in a long blink pause to take note
hey...
lets just toil another day....