THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN

He was six,

I think.

Six is such a young age

To die.

To die when the world is young.

So young and fresh.

Playing baseball.

The bat came back,

Freed from hands

Whose grip was too loose.

So young and guiltless,

And memories now still fill,

Of the sound of the strike,

Against your best friend’s chest.

Just a game, they said.

Just a game.

Three days later,

Standing in a cemetery,

That stretched

To the end of the earth

Or so it seemed.

On a bright, warm, summer’s day.

The sky so clear and so blue.

Where was the rain?

Shouldn’t there have been rain?

Shouldn’t there have been angels there to cry?

They laid your friend away,

In a small white casket,

Flower covered it was.

But wasn’t he allergic to such as that?

Could he sneeze?

Did someone pack tissues

In his pockets?

He always had tissues.

And a minister spoke of heaven,

Of heaven and hell,

And redemption.

And did his best to assure

Everyone there that

A special place there was for those age six.

And those living age six,

Stood in mild confusion.

Was he really in that box?

And the rain then came!

In tears!

It came in streams.

Amid sobs and shaking.

As those age six stood and fidgeted.

It came as a torrent would.

If only the sky could.

But the sky!

The sky, so clear and so blue,

So distant, yet so near;

The sky stayed blue and cloudless.

Blue and cloudless on that fated day.

For clouds there were enough,

There among the living!

There for the one whose heart,

At six, had stopped its beating.

Forever young.

Forever six.

Forever dead.