Durable strength – be it strong and able;
with resilient build, with spinal structure;
be it rugged, be it tough and stable;
forms a shape that’s hard to rupture.
Dependable strength – with guts and grit;
there when a crisis comes to crunch;
there when needed; there in the midst of it;
a powerhouse; a pool of potential punch!
Disabled strength – crippled and lame;
buckled and bent with nothing to harness;
a spent force, nothing but a crying shame;
a collapse of faith, be it more or less.
. Strength – not given break or buffer,
. under weight will cause us all to suffer.

© Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 8) 25 April 2011

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To the reader: The concept of strength has been a long-held theme of mine … an early poem read: ‘My strength is such I can not yield, and therein lies my weakness; a gentle touch can pierce my shield and shatter my completeness’. In Shakespeare’s sonnets he often refers to strength in terms of resilience, with fatigue being its major draw of energies: “Tired of these, for restful death I cry … for these would I be gone.”

To the poet: Durable, dependable and disabled strength. When giving a sonnet its structure there’s an endless pattern of combinations from which to choose; some patterns work better than others. Too obvious and the pattern becomes trite, too subtle and the effort is lost to all but the deepest of readers. In this sonnet, the visual and aural cue of strength’s dual dimensions leads the reader to your desired definition.

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durability