Lament

for those gone too soon

LAMENT

Why must the best be taken first?
Reaper, why not slake your thirst
by swallowing the harmers,
the hustlers, the snake-charmers,
the charlatans and falsifiers,
chancers and the cursed?
What difference would it make to you
to take the wood that’s rotten through?
Leave for us the timber
that’s constructible and limber
to keep our structure fortified
and hope forever new.

Peppy Scott