Waiting To Live

When Arthritis paces outside your front door
Or heart disease want to take your breath
You are not required to always be nice
And only hear your stubborn advice

Chained in snow, rain, freeze and fry
A dog shows fear in worried eyes
Yet he and his owner don’t understand
Why he keeps on whining, why, why, and why?

Some forms of suffering exist merely to please
And sometimes true heroes give us their lives
Not to let greed and cruelty decide
Moving fast as they can, so that love survives

Deep in Darfur, hurting children learn not to cry
brothers, sisters, hang from their mother’s weak hips
wearing sad confused faces waiting to live,
Just needing a trip that keeps them from dying

How long must sweet children stare into the sky
While their open eyes seem distant and closed
Didn’t a sage once try to explain, “the quality of mercy is not strained
But falls from heaven like the gentle sweet rain?”

8/17/2018

Peter W. Johnson