Before A Custody Case

On the possibility of losing your children.

All my futures

Lie heaped upon this hour,

I may not turn at will

For this unfavoured power,

What breath may tip the scales

What long-forgotten word

May turn the certain cause

To my uncertain loss.

 

My hopes are brittle glass,

My fears are deadly palls

That seek to suffocate

My mind behind their walls,

I may not count the cost

‘Til years have past me fled,

Like dreams I left undreamed,

And lives I never led.

 

David Lewis Paget