by George Freek
I hardly recognize in this pile
of rotting flesh and bones,
that blithe lark, ascending,
as he strained to reach the sun.
I tried and lost, his carcass
seems to say.
What was he hoping for?
Was he simply young?
Did he dream of those
miraculous clouds in the sky?
Then learned they were vapor
and vanished like a morning mist,
and so he quit.
Did disillusion kill him,
as it will you and I?
I look at my garden,
at the budding peonies,
how slow in arriving,
but how soon they die.