flight

Is it the hunger of children

that brings the beast to prowl.

Crying out the souls of poverty as

sticks and stones lay down their head.

Salty tears drying just below

the eyes of today’s forgotten,

dripped onto the little feet

without footprints to follow.

Callused soles of traveled miles,

rubbed into the distain  of nothingness,

from thick leather boots stepping

on the fear of the lost children.

Copyrighted:  2018  CMM

Cleaning my desk,

I opened an envelope stuffed

with keepsakes, cards, letters.

Crinkled against time, some tattered

with wear, I saw an old familiar address.

Pulling it from the pile was like pulling

a friend from the reservoirs of memories.

I opened it, the dust had settled on his words

as ashes and sand settled on his grave.

He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed

with cancer …

He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments

of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.

Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken

of a seagull taking flight.

It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for

from the past.

©  CMM  2013