Free Verse
Too Soon
So much depends on
the grinning of a lone
child
laughing,
on the run
like Neruda
brown & agile,
at loose ends
with seaweed hair,
floating free,
unadorned.
A simple grace
Too soon
Too soon
the weight of anguish,
a carpet of lilies
on fields of Flanders,
Belfast, Soweto, Compton,
Sarajevo, Beirut.
Too soon
the tolling of the bell
Too soon
the world is
at once,
bigger
and yet (somehow)
smaller.
Too soon
the long night,
like a blanket,
covers us all.
