Sad to be a child.
However hard one watches,
branches never grasp the clouds,
stuff which drifts like moods
and slips between the crotches.
Sad to be a child
whose play becomes to brood
within a brushwood fortress
where branches never grasp the clouds,
whims are driven as if scuds
and wishes come in snatches.
Sad to be a child
in a copse where dream eludes
the anxious reach that clutches.
Branches never grasp the clouds
just encompass solitude
until someone approaches.
Sad to be a child.
Branches never grasp the clouds.
[Published in California Quarterly 43, 3 (2017), p 45.]