Life’s Smiling
by Odin Roark

At birth
Like a newly sprouted seed
We are gently cared for
Our simple growth
Fondled
Nurtured
Made hopeful

As time becomes apparent
Our spines and appendages
Experience growing
Like limbs of a plant or tree
Its leaves responding
Voices of wind
Tears of cloudy days
Seeping into foundations
The very roots
From where life started

As days pass
Caring hands culture our expressions
Trim our branches
Sweep away yesterday’s leaves
Prepare for more seasonal change

And so infancy
Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood
Progresses
Hopefully into wisdom

Eventually
The strong growth
Remains stalwart
While unattended experience
Withers

Storms of mother’s nature
As well as man’s nature
Ravage the weak
Often resulting in takers of anything
Rather than
Givers of cover
Of sustenance
Of refuge
Where beauty’s colors
Create glowing changes

Finally

Either this once innocent seedling succumbs
No longer capable of sustainment
Or cycles through to survival
Its roots hard to yank
Even by those of fraudulent power

Eventually

Such endurance
Becomes its own mulch
That food of another kind
Seeping into the water table
Journeying toward
Tomorrow’s birth
Where existence of another kind
Will take root
Perhaps finding oceans quite amicable