Heavy burden very well carried by you once (4)
I believe the answer is:
pose
'heavy burden' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
I can't explain the rest of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pose that I've seen before include "Attitude struck" , "Sit for a painter" , "Assume an attitude (for photo etc)" , "Sit as model" , "Model; attitude" .)