In a World Without Symbols

“Read them fairy tales.” Albert Einstein

How could we forget that
toddlers squeal the anthem of the moon:
a song muses covet? Did we also forget
which child purpled the night and placed
gold coins in true baskets like aging gypsies

to make a home for a lost cherubim? The infants
who sleep behind the gate of the vegetable garden,
near the garden hose sleep with downy-soft kittens.
They breathe rose petals and coo at the cow, yes—
just as houses may return to hold the women in.

There’s no Peter Rabbit to slide a fence over.
No mother-made jacket to leave behind, snagged.
No chocolate bunnies. Not even a sugar-candy egg.
The toys. The toys. O, rue the day we threw out
the toys. The wobbling Weebles that have fallen

down into yellow Tonka trucks have gone to
a cardboard church where GI Joe is a witness as
Barbie marries Ken. The toys. The toys.
Now only in dreams, where we cannot escape
the storybook wisdom in a bowl of captured light.

Written in response to a post by The Third Eve

Crossing the Road For One Another by Henri Nouwen

We become neighbours when we are willing to cross the road for one another. There is so much separation and segregation: between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.

There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the street once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might become neighbours.