• How long ago must it have started?
    Sitting soaked in sliver moonlight
    on the knees of my father,
    The chirrups of sleepy summer crawlers
    Blended with his deep vibrato,
    And the rhythmical stroke of hand on hair
    Was like the heartbeat of the past of father and kin.
    “Son,” he once said to me,
    “The world isn’t all that bad.”
    And after his death,
    And into my christening as a father,
    Those words that I carried with me were all that I had.

    Tear stains can only last as long as the summer sun allows them to,
    And cruel hearts can only beat until those who believed them tell it to
    Stop
    And question why the sun rises and sets
    For those who give it no reason,
    And for those who seem not to deserve it in any way.
    As my child looked up into my eyes,
    With his heart in tatters, worn to shreds that appeared to be
    Tied up to the bars of the jail that held the ghost of an innocent man,
    I found myself bringing up the words of a great individual that I seemed to know best:
    “Son,” I told him, as I pushed up his chin.
    “The world isn’t all that bad.”
    And as we walked down the graying sidewalk
    Hand in hand,
    The sniffles wore down,
    And I could hear the mournful song of a bird
    That knew the secret of innocence.
    A bird that seemed to be singing:
    “World, this place isn’t all that bad.”