Hershey Poem by Nero CaroZiv

Often in my childhood I had seen a lonesome boy
He lived across a road from my house near a field wild,
I chanced to see him at break of summer day; shy and coy
He was the solitary kind of child.

Few friends, not many mates, comrades, cronies Hershey knew;
He dwelt on a wide open green moor,
The most gentle and naïve thing that ever grew Beside any human door
Yet he was often rebuked and chided by folks; they never had his real view


His parents wretched creatures, faint images of the night
His mother short stocky would often go shouting far and wide;
His father too worried for his son never removed him from his sight
The old chap of Bronze countenance never found the rule to serve for a guide.

Hershey dwelt near the meadow with a farm among the un trodden ways
Beside the springs that were swelled in winter rain from above,
A child whom there were none to praise
And very few to respect, acknowledge or love:


The teachers in the nearby elementary school
To his parents alarm and grief, dismissed him as reckless fool
With cherished sullenness his father pursue his pace
While his mother ingrate was to wear in haughty a smile less face


The parents were clueless; perplexed and lost
The child grew further aloof and introvert at the neighborhood frost
Two smoldering embers of dire apocalypse
Two refugees of the dark days the world was eclipsed



The father tried with good heart to intervene
Among the neighborhood boys; to calm and pacify the evil winds
Yet in spite of his efforts it was not for much avail
His only child was offered no break, no relieving bail


The miserable couple watched in dismay the calamity of their only seed
Being harassed, beaten and mocked, a phenomena they could not digest or perceived
Each of them lost a whole family in dire evil time
A nightmare to observe their only survival drifting from his prime




I went there in the old neighborhood to spy the fawn at play,
And stalk the hare rushing upon the green;
But the innocent timid child face of Hershey
Would nowhere, and never more to be seen.


Over rough torrent and smooth roads I tripped along,
And never could look back behind;
My heart burst with tears singing a solitary song
That whistled in the moaning wind.


Days of bygone saddened youth, now blurred and shaded
By the twilight of events in long years
Flowers of plundered youth, now brittle in my mind and faded
Its reminiscence bathed in sorrow of tears


Yet sweet thoughts of youth which in my mind waken
Hurtful, mournful with unexplained joy, and self truth
Fruits which evil time and devilish power had shaken
From off their nesting bough

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