Poem a Day December #6

Collins says that mortality is the underlying theme of Western poetry (“Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”)

--from an article by Jim Manney at: https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/billy-collins/

Out of the Mouth of Babes

(Matthew 21:16)

On the short car ride

from Alameda island

to Bay Farm island,

I was trying in vain

to explain to my ten year-old

why God lets people

die of floods, and earthquakes

and cancer.

My son interrupted me.

Dad, he said

you know how I see God?

I see him as

an out of work

construction worker

who’s dancing around

his apartment

in his underwear,

a beer in one hand

and a hammer in the other...

so, of course he’s going to

break some things.

We can’t expect perfection

from a guy like that, can we?