Adrift

Come, have a look-see of the young at play,

Their heads under caps with balls at the ends.

They climb the jungle gym, grip its cold gray

Bars, not knowing that their path in life wends

***

Now this way, then that. Absent of fathers,

They are boys with no legacy as sons,

Whose sisters are lost and orphaned daughters,

Unmoored boats that the high tide overruns.

***

See them now in their innocence affirmed,

Immersed in joy with smiles on their faces.

Witness their potential before the germ

Of self-doubt borne of brokenness erases

***

The white-hot heat of their bright beginnings,

The violet fire, loves’ underpinnings.