A Lad On Fire Poem by James McLain

Being young and young in
green growth already being
in a struggle to understand
insanity and never understanding
the nightmare of burning the
finger like a green branch,
While the sap screams, and hisses
lost untill the smell is covered over
by her knowledge of him, and no
sorrow it was not in piety nor,
when the bubble was pierced,
and the tears flowed out and
that by giants could such be done
and death claiming him and sorrow
by her a great mountain of guilt that
even with my debt of forgiveness,
I cannot move and the guilt made
her worse, and no one knew it but me.