Forgone

We’re growing children of life. 

With silly pranks on the tips of our 

elongating fingers

and crocodile tears

In big eyes that our faces have still to match. 

You are a ray of sunshine and a beam of moonbright

I am a glittering waft of perfume that blows through

you like a summertime song. 

We’ve loved with hearts that are growing into love

and taken and given and hidden and sought. 

But honey cannot be turned into 

the bitterness of neem. 

I cannot carry hate in my heart 

Or anger in the trembling of my neck

Right under my ears 

In the back, 

Where my eyes are not. 

For we look towards tomorrows. 

And we are children that must know happiness 

It is what has built our bodies

And it is the food we give our hearts. 

I am a growing child. I am feeling things

for the first time. 

I am also a spring that surprises you on a walk

To a mountain 

that is aflame with the rising sun

And flows and bends and knows

That mountains can be carved. 

I learn from my heart. 

Let us be the bees and flowers who kiss

And grow and spread

And live through one another.

We are young and there is time

to take root in an orchard 

Where we will find the trees we want to take root by

When we learn how to share the sunlight. 

Let us be the bees and flowers who are friends

And carry love with us

For it is not physics

(Who was once a man to me) 

And is allowed 

To make our burdens lighter.