Frail

The wooden man,

Was built in mild August,

Given life by September,

And assimilated into the town nicely.

He helped everyone,

He carried groceries, painted houses,

Marched in parades as children,

Hung by his arms and sat on his shoulders.

When the storm hit,

And the medicine ran out,

He walked to the next town,

The blizzard did not take with it a soul that year.

As the generations bent forward,

Like a mother towards a crib,

He watched the skin wrinkle,

And marveled at his own steadfastness.

When his creators died,

He attended their funeral,

Stood testament to their genius,

And always kept their graves.

It was only when their grandchildren,

Were just coming of age,

That the first splinter came,

Fluttering off his thick arm.

His two yellow eyes,

Stared for a very long time,

Where the groove came in,

Deep in the forest where he lived.

He began to creak,

But could not find where from,

And the sound became very irritating,

And the children preferred to play inside.

In the forest the animals,

Attended and played the audience,

As the creation came down,

In the silence he was born with.

The yellow eyes began to fade,

As the wooden man sat down,

Slowly rested on the ground,

And felt his broken hinges.

The children found him,

Though these were too young to know,

And played king of the hill,

On a very strange rock.

Time covered him with moss,

White perennials and a gentle shaft of sunlight,

And the wooden man went back,

And he stopped being so sad.