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Description
eight-year-olds don't understand
death. they don't know why the dog no longer
barks or why the cricket no longer
chirps or why the grasshopper lies still. they were brought
to life believing that we will live forever, yet the world
slams a fist, shows them
forever is never and that they will not believe
in anything so beautiful ever
again.

(they live in laughter
and in love
but sorrow shall fold them into something
so new)

sixteen-year-olds believe in something
after, though they don't quite know
what. they understand the cat didn't tear the feathers from
the bird just for the hell of
it, but for the life of it, and where did that life go?
yet they forget faith as time rolls on
and brush death from their shoulders
like dripping rain.

(they learn you can't stride on a cloud
and fall through childhood
into reality,
heavy)

thirty-two-year-olds forget that
life moves on without the ones you used to love,
and they hate it; they hold on to
rusted photographs and tinted memories gone blind,
yet still they wonder
why so much matters on what it is we
leave behind.

(they work like dogs
to be remembered as something more
than nothing at all - they
don't understand they are so very small)

sixty-four-year-olds remember they smashed
the cricket and never felt
sick over it. they know memories
fade and that's okay; feathers are just as important as
tombstones and the weight
of the world never much mattered anyway.

(and they learn while laughing
with god that the cat
did it just for the hell of it after all)