A man walks the road of life,
Caring as he cares along the way
And doing as he does—
And enjoying the routine
As he may.

And if he walks long enough, he will
Surely come to a dilemma of the sort
Where the road will not go where he wants,
And stubbornly presents two undesirable options—

The one being that some certain problem
In this world cannot be solved without
The inspiring and organizing of many people
To pull together in the same direction—

And the other being that he has
Chanced upon a problem that
Simply cannot be solved at all,
And must rather be endured.

And this is the fork at which
It’s sometimes hard to tell
Which of these two distasteful ideas
A person will have a harder
Time accepting.

And being like so many others,
Our man falters at the fork,
Not liking either option of the two,
And choosing instead the surprising third—

Which is to march in place,
Still caring as he cares
And doing as he does—
As if expecting that some better option
Should soon present itself—
And until then,
Counting his caring
And his doing
As his proper duty—
And his marching in place
As progress.