Beginnings are a burden we all bear,
fat with expectations rarely met,
swollen with unbridled hope
that drives us ever on,
and keeps us stumbling forward
when those fading hopes are gone.

Beginnings are the blueprints
of those things we pray will come,
not yet revised with detours
that we'll be forced to make,
before the shortcuts and dark alleys
that we'll be forced to take.

Beginnings are the salve we seek
against life's jagged edge,
against its bruisings and defeats,
to heal and grow and mend,
along the journeys we will take,
that cannot help but end.

At journey's end we'll rest at last,
content in all we've done,
until that anxious feeling stirs
that we had thought was through,
when once again we'll steel ourselves
and begin again anew.