Who Are You?

Who are you,
Innocent child hiding,
Thinking you're invisible,
Behind supple masks of velvet stone.

Frantic efforts consume you so,
In an ageless game of hide-and-seek;
Making you a stranger to us all;
Forbidding intrusion.

Each new day's arrival quickens before you;
Time playing it's own sadistic amusement.
Breathless mind fearful, your charade continues;
Travesty's journey unveiling like a hollow, empty tree.

How shall we remember you dear,
Sweet, trembling child;
A tortured soul of tattered rags,
Body primp and properly kept?

If only, truly, we could know you,
Elegantly dressed in simple honesty;
Then, and only then, we could share,
True love in this dying world's embrace.


by Rodney Alan Crater
Copyright ©2006 Rodney Alan Crater