Waiting For The Harvest Poem by Long Tooth

Although I'm childless by own hand
That's no crime as I understand
But parenthood I might restrict?
This world's not one that I'd inflict
Upon another soul by choice
So, in this cause, I raise my voice.

I do not judge the ones that do
But wish that more would think it through!
A boy's just toy to those in charge,
A tool for war until discharge
Of duty, all but smart must face,
Although for cripple no disgrace.
Boys taught all feelings to suppress,
That death by war should not depress,
For to the victors go the curls
Of otherwise complicit girls.

A girl too's chattel to the hoards
Of fools who rule conscription boards,
Her privileged status meant to lure
Acceptance of forced life demure!
Her payoff's choice among the rank
Of men untrained to feel or think.
Bereft, accepts the lot of moms
(Who build earth's population bombs.)
Where's freedom of democracy,
When population's blind, can't see?

Is there new hope when women serve,
Experience what men deserve?
To earn the salary of men,
Be president, but without sin?
I do not hold my breath and yet
What if more lived life with no net
Of children born to soften fall
In our old age! Would that forestall
The privilege we seek to gain
Though at the cost of other's pain?

No child is born who asks for life!
And parenthood can foster strife
You did not dream of, or foretell,
(The plans of man don't all end well!) :
Loss factored in if you are wise
And plan in fact to improvise!
Just know that rain won't always serve
A ripened field or sun preserve
A field that's dry, bereft of rain,
All life, in fact, foreshadows pain.

Though rain will come, a poem rhyme
God still decides when it is time,
No farmer's labor, love can save,
What lightning burns, we're weather's slave.
Best scorn our pride and value mirth,
Our future's tied to Mother Earth!


Long Tooth
August 1,2018