We are both right, you know:
These sandcastles could be our homes.
I would be among the ones to tell you: no,
They will erode -
These dreams you build, the people you help,
the audacity of hope.
Join us on the jaded side of history,
the one that few acknowledge
and most simply ignore.
Why else does science mock uncertainty,
And insist we not explore?
Have you not bled the same color as the rest of us?
But what makes you humbling to me:
you keep building dreams in your sandbox,
As if the world were your playground,
As if vacationing at the beach.
Maybe sometimes it isn’t easy for you,
To keep the momentum around,
To sustain the young-at-heart reach.
You’re better at it than I am, though,
And the goal is much more profound
and people much colder, each:
See the spite of selfish spirit,
Face their fury, even fear it,
Feel the ubiquity of pain;
Yet insist on imagined play.
Waves may wash away your towers,
Other kids deny your power,
Most lose childhood to the fray,
Insist again on healing play.
What else will occupy our days
After all sorrow is erased?
When our awkward hate is snatched away;
We will know how god is God of Play.
After all our disenchanted disbelief,
after every jaded bitter grief,
when death alone remains for us to meet,
isn’t it only children
He will greet?