If decency were meant to fall from trees
the seed took time and, not unlike the grass,
the difference is that the fruit does not
allow itself to replicate and just
be plucked by hands unless they have a heart.
It does not drop, not by a thousand shots
and, like respect, grows silently, bides by
its time, no matter slowly, like sigh, to bless.
As hummingbirds are swift backward in flight
the prize or just reward is not as fast
that it does not depict a mirror that
one sees without reflecting its own heart.
Its heart is charity no margin wide
can ever thwart the thump in consonance
with unfulfilling want to sing like larks;
the nightingale, in nursing, soothes hard spots.
A heart is kin to healing kindred parts.
It cannot hurt that which it hears a lot
of ache from, verbalized or otherwise;
like pickled pain exacts an awful price.
The corners of a memory are daft
they seem to nurture chaff that is not apt
to sing in jocund company along
a solo spree gone scattering its song.
There is a line that draws between a broken
bond and brokenness. It isn’t thin
like rainbows rising only after rain.
It is a lining, too, its snow is sheen.
________________________
Abraham de la Torre
