Precious Progress

Plans, ambitions, and dreams:
Forces of power and action
Hampered by invisible foes
Like an agency by bureaucracy,
A runner by sand or storm,
An engine by lack of fuel,
And a printer with a broken port.

Cut off from communications,
Slowed by hidden hurdles,
Or immobilized and drained.
Plans fail to be made
Or if made, fade like mirages,
Occasionally visible -
Impossible to touch.
Actions and goals are hard-won
Not only in their success
But in even partial attempt.
Requiring strength of will
Beyond the shallow norm
To push beyond barriers
And fight for each fraction
Of precious progress.