Selected Poems

                              SLC, Utah
                               November 25, 1980

Festival of Children*

wondrous children,
beautiful and vibrant,
            you are the songs 
            swimming in my mind, 
                you jump and run, 
                  curiously seeking
answers
to more questions
than any adult can envision. 
your why is this? why is that? 
can elephants really 
dance
upon the head
of a pin?
oh and ah
and even ha ha ha,
but
you go on and on,
exploring
all you can,
and in doing
all you do
you make this world
a joyous place
when
you smile out of knowing
that love
surrounds
your every waking moment.

can you dance, child
or skip rope
upon the rays
beaming down

     from a cheesey moon? 
can you see 
within
the skin and rinds of melons 
that life
is a delicious slice
of happiness
when all goes well with you?

                 and what do you silently wish for
                 when it is cold outside and you
                 are lying deeply in your bed?
            what is the song
            you wish to sing
            as morning arrives
            to steer you on your way
            to school?

who are those things
gliding on clouds,
            can you make clouds move and sway? 
and when the television shows 
have gone away,
when the games have ended for the day, 
oh, when cooking smells 
have lifted up your sights 
to soar
into the honeyed accents of your parents,
yes, holidays appear
one after the other,
and when you start to think
that someday soon
you, too, shall be grown up, 
you'll have to work 
to eat and clothe yourselves, 
it'll be a different kind of world 
where work is work 
and play is something 
for the weekend, if at all, 
but now, oh, children, 
you have this day


in which
to sing and jump and run,
a day to celebrate
the beauty of your beings,
a day to fill your minds
with joys,
            day dreams,
                  reflections,
and much knowledge,
a day
wherein
you'll learn more
of how to be
the most magnificent
you
that
you
can
be . . . you
are
the
festival of life.

*also appeared in Loves of Ricardo