Does it bother you to see me proud
Of an accomplished day?
Does that inner devil in you
Rise out of my smile going away?

If you think it brings me down
To snicker words behind my ears
You’re not being practical for
I have many greater fears

Yet I do agree that the poem
‘Sticks and Stones’ is not all right
For it’s words that get thrown back
And forth and start many a fight

For those our age, peace is only a dream
And it sounds depressing to speak of
But it could exist if we learn that the foundation
Of all is sincere and communal love

When we make this realization, I fear
It may be far too late
Judging on how we all act today,
I just see souls clouded only with hate

But as long as youth has its resilience
There is always that shard of joy
And this piece is usually all it takes
For renewal and change to deploy

* * *
Perennial Bloom ?
In a windswept field a crow pecks
At the crumbling ground
The summer has died and no flowers can bloom
But he looks for them as if in surprise

Time moves much too fast and now
He regrets not stopping to see
All the Campanula bells and bees
Taking moments to rest on stoutly sedums

Where has it gone, and why with such speed?
He calls out in the evening air
Whispery porch voices don’t answer for now
He sees man only inside by his hearth

The doe treads down the field
With grown fawn at her side, he does not
Amble anymore but keeps good footing
He remembers when that fawn was first born

How long ago it seems to be when
Tulips spread many a velvety petal
And newborns stepped into the sun
For this crow it was only yesterday

Now the moon is sitting in a ring of haze
And it’s colder than the night before
The doe leads her fawn to a new wooded patch
A house stands near where her old one was

This weary bird twitches one cold glass eye
And then starts to settle down never
Taking his eye off the moon that, for one
Has not changed since the day he first saw it

If the world were like a flower that lived forever
I could sit and watch as it stood through the snow
And the weathers that hurriedly turned harsh
That is, the crow finished, if there were such a thing
A thing as perennial bloom