Starting off a new month with a multifaceted, often misunderstood, and easy-to-lose yet hard-to-truly-gain virtue, I would like to share a short series of haiku written in honor of Job. He is often still included in that old comparison when we say someone “has the patience of Job.” But ultimately, just as much as he had patience, he had honor.

~ I ~

Would you have become

Poster child of Virtue

If you’d given up?

~ II ~

The darkest forests

Have rock-rough paths leading to

The brightest clearings.

~ III ~

Health, houses, wealth, wife,

Children, reputation, life:

Which came back dearest?

~ IV ~

Two yellow flowers,

Delicate, pierce opaque ground

To be crowned by sun.