Owen thinks outside the box.
He’s planning his escape:
He’d try and make a run for it
If he was more in shape
I know it looks a cardboard thing.
And open on one side:
But Owen swears he’s really stuck,
And that he’s really tried
So be more understanding,
Do not question him, or quiz:
For Owen’s life is desperate,
At least, he says it is
Her voice is fast and agile, but
Her manners soft and slow;
She’s stronger than a river’s rush,
But yielding, even so —
Her heart belongs to every dog
And child in the land;
But if you think her wobbly, she
Will drop you where you stand
I’ve watched her grow from just a girl,
But no analysis
Has helped me know the first dang thing
Of why she’s how
She is
Ria’s stayed at home these years
And worked there, uncomplaining;
She says her father needs her, so
She’s opted for remaining
It’s funny how the years go by,
And how old things get wearing:
It strikes her now, from time to time,
She’s doing all the caring
So maybe she will leave her work
Of service to the throne,
And find some satisfaction in
A real life of
Her own
a
fence
that bites,
despising
anyone who tries
to enter through or over it —
a sign of real unwelcoming:
written with metal
and twisted
into
sheer
pain
Some hearts sing
If they might hear
The music;
Others sing and dance
From a music that’s all their own
The joy of climbing that far off the ground,
The taste of fruit you have picked yourself;
Most children, still, these real things want to feel,
More than mere images, or bits of light.
It’s we that cloak in artificial ways
Experience that they are born to want:
By hiding in our plastic fortresses
Protecting them from being who they are.
The apple trees are there; the rivers too —
The dirt, the grass, the water, and the sky:
The joy of all that they might learn to do,
In all the simple things we keep them from
I learned to use these things at school through struggling;
My printing poor, my cursive even worse —
A dearth of what I think they still call motor skills,
Although I tried to fight against that curse —
But yet, I loved to draw, I liked the colors:
So I worked at it like a sledding dog —
Most undeterred by not being that gifted,
The same way I now go about a blog
