no need for echoes where the silence heaps
up in dark corners waiting for new night
to lower herself and let the breathy might
that we call summer with its sudden leaps
of devastating beauty stay our sleeps
from each astonishment that seems so right
just when it happens then we turn that slight
degree of justice into one that weeps
we are not wrong to ask just what the time
must measure out for each unwanted child
who comes upon the wall and does pause
to beg for mercy nor to ring the chime
of those who think the tenor is too mild
but will uphold the harshest of our laws