much too proud to admit to the pain as the sled sped under the barbwire ripping away a layer of jeans and flesh so young then still believing one should be a stoic martyr showing no fear while coursing down the hill under the fence onto the frozen pond the cold numbing the wound and coagulating the blood thus concealing the extent of the injury from others retreating home as darkness fell in solitude tending to the wound knowing others will not see the scar nor need to know of the pain truly felt a lesson on how to handle life
stripped naked every flaw was revealed every scar of promises not kept every mark left by history’s lash was open for evaluation by the buyer but the flaws of the buyer were not revealed like the history of a country whose own flesh remains cloaked in a myth of freedom
oh how spring
brings forth from poets
a multitude of verses
a never-ending array
of love lost
and then regained
friendship betrayed
and then forgiven
like an army of prodigal sons
birth and rebirth
more flowers than in a monet painting
colorful rituals of every sort
say but one
removal of the christmas training wheels
although not practiced everywhere
it is one which these poets have forgotten
and like all rituals it has its steps
first to ride upon the softest grass
assuring no injury to the child
leaving only injured ants in its wake
no unexploded ordinances here
unlike the fields in vietnam
next moving to the cruel street
father racing beside his child
legs pumping and out of breath
protecting his child from his past pain
like a parent in beirut, afghanistan, iran
or east la
where learning to ride is not an option
finally at the child’s insistence
the father is banned to the bay window
watching his child challenge the world alone
with coffee cup in hand
still running beside his child
and with his first fall
the first scars upon his heart
as the child continues to confront the world
the father cannot end his virtual race
and with each fall
another scar
Read Between the Minds 