the painful beauty of youth
is that desperate clarity
that comes, wide-eyed, from
lessons yet to be learned
driving you forward through fires
that send the angry aged hiding
in the shadowed safety of graves to come,
covering their cloudy eyes
that their fearful cataract minds
might find solace in forgetfulness.

this is why we cling weeping
to our unspoiled child-selves
with a hope that their buoyant light
might lift us above this grating sphere,
and why there are always
tears in the eyes of our elders
and a heartache that ever grows.