The Vigil

The Vigil

I have been keeping the vigil through the long and patient years,
The vigil of the cold and of the deliberate and the fears,
That the moment would pass before the preparation was complete,
And the vigil is the patience of the man who will not retreat.

Not the vigil of the grief but the vigil of the plan,
The vigil of the cold and the deliberate and the man,
Who chose to wait because the waiting was the right
and strategic,
And the vigil is the patience of the arctic and the logic.

The vigil, the long and cold and patient keeping of the watch,
The vigil, the discipline of the cold and the notch,
Of every passing day added to the record of the held,
The vigil is the patience and the patience is the spell.

Cast over the fury in the cold and in the deliberate wait,
The vigil is the cold I chose across the years of late,
And early and the middle of the long accumulation,
And the vigil is the patience of the full reckoning nation.

I have kept the vigil through conditions that were hard,
I have kept the vigil when the patient and the scarred,
Alternative of the immediate would have been the easy choose,
And the vigil is the choice I made to keep the cold and lose.

The vigil ends with the arrival of the calculated day,
The vigil ends when the patient has completed the relay,
Of the baton from the held to the deliberate release,
And the vigil is the patience and the vigil ends in peace.