So simplistic were the rhymes
Of my childhood
Aesop and Mother Goose
Taught me how to be good
Kind and wise
Avoid Miss-Understood

Yet, they did not share with me
In black and white ink
How to dare to care 
When life is on the brink
Of falling in and down
Afraid there is no settling

The nesting and pruning
Of love birds in tune
With one another
Humdrum forgetting
Singing, fanning plumage
Making room

If you should find a lover
Try to keep her hand
But if lost remember -
Not to weep for
The Summer nights
On a cold, dark night
in June.