Glimpses (4)

His mother was an absentee, 
His father, an explorer — 
He grew beneath a dying tree, 
Both up, and poorer — 

Now autumn sings out in the woods, 
As winter comes a-calling; 
He’s got the cans, but not the goods, 
And more than leaves are falling — 

We live, because we’re born to live, 
But he’s afraid of dying: 
And if I said he’d told the truth, 
Then I’d 

Be lying