Kindness is a luxury that all can afford.
So why is the world filled with so much evil?
Patience is an attribute not hard to acquire
So why’s everyone in a frantic hurry.
Forgiveness cures so very many ills
So why is revenge flavor of the month.
Happiness is an attainable state
So why is humanity so upset and angry.
God’s still in Heaven with hope to bestow
So why is humankind too stupid to know.
ljm

May all the sonnets in the world compiled in beauty
lend themselves to your sweet eyes of gold
may every line of of penmanship speak to you of me
showing you that ardor, still untold

and when the moon comes out to serenade you darling
send me kisses from your balcony
and when the moonlight bathes the feather's of a starling
tinted dark as heaven's ebony,  

bring me all your charms and play your castanets my love
rend each doubt and join me over there
where every wingeth bird soars up like a turtle dove  
and plays you music oh so fair

may every sonnet ever written call you out by name,
may every poem ever uttered be your sweet proclaim.

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A WAVE

she brings me
the sea to see
in her tiny hands

tamed in blue buckets
the captured sea
sleeps beside her bed

*

It was the first time she saw the sea and she patted it like a pet and said; "See...sea my friend!" The sea fell in love with her and she fell in it.

Her mother was sick and couldn't make it down to the shore so Tilly kept trying to bring back the sea for her to see. But alas the sea would trickle through her little hands so nothing survived the journey. She kept trying and repeating " See the sea Mammy...see the sea!" or "I have brought you a wave!"
She managed to smuggle some sea home in her bright blue bucket with the red stripe and she kept it by her bedside because it was her friend. She would also sleep with twigs and stones and shells she had also befriended that day. She regarded everything as a sentient being and loved them all equally. To her a stick or a stone had as much right to a life as a human being or a bee. I think she believed that we are all here in this moment and so all living beings sharing the same place in the universe. Loving and kindness was her religion and she practiced it daily and embraced everyone and anything she saw.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail

The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.

I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.