cruelty – Jovis on a Journey…

Wandering in my mind looking for reasons
I came across far more questions than answers
Why are so many children of the world dying
Why are so many, many mothers crying
Why is God so cruel to them – but I know
It is mankind that is cruel, it is man.

Why was man put here to be so unkind
Why are we here at all if not to find
A way to learn to treat our sisters
A way to learn to love our children
A way to learn to respect our elders
A way to learn to love with dignity.

Some choose a path that takes them to God
Some choose a different way and yet still hope
Some take a path that leads to their dying
And leave behind their widows and children crying
Can we not yet see that utter pointlessness
Nor see all of the good that we should bless.

A little child lies dying in a hospital crib
Her mother so unwilling now to depart
The shortest of lives that the wee thing lived
Like a stake has been driven right into her heart.
She was killed in the crossfire unintentionally
But she’s no less dead, can we not yet see!

A Cruelty Unbearable…2014

Sometimes we return to long ago conversations
where more than cross words were uttered
where protagonists squared up to one another
and arguments and insults were uttered.

And when with the benefit of hindsight,
that most magical and wondrous thing
we realise often how wrong we were
and the knowledge of embarrassments sting.

If we could just take back those words
that were aimed to wound so deep
knowing how they’d hit their mark
and said to make someone weep.

In those teenage years, how cruel we were
how very little of life we knew
how gentle and forgiving our heart’s desire
how slow the understanding – in young men grew.

I’m now a man – three score and five
a man who love has touched so deep
but I colour now as I think back
at my cruelty then and I want to weep.

For almost fifty years I’ve loved just one
kindness flows through her every pore
I’ve strived to make up for those teenage years
and she just smiles and then loves me more.

My luck has held, we’ve stayed the course
I pinch myself to check I can still feel
and she looks and smiles at me and I know
it’s not a dream and it’s still real.