Desperandum   -Found poem of “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Notes: A free verse poem about fighting, war, and life, if you are pessimistic enough.

In the distance, it was summertime,
Children enacting a strange little drama of their own invention.
Rain was soft around them, they were beginning their day’s play.
Too young, still.

Fall,
They fought together and against each other.
Their father looked on with acquiescence.
I wasn’t scared, they said, I have guts.
But not when their people were falling all around, an illness from within, an unknown entity.

Winter now, winter forever,
Snow, expected, but does not fall.
Later, they said it was flowers that fell, sickly white flowers that had never seen the sun.
Fingernails scrape slate, indentations across chests, hollowness jutting out.
Marked, they were, as they wondered when it will ever end.