Of Bonfires And Rainbows Poem by Patti Masterman

Sometimes used to think that babies could only dwell
In their special realm, of sweet baby smells;
Tidy white crib, with the even spaced bars.
Pony lamps too, pink and yellow and blue.
And sweet tasting sugary medicines
To help the sick babies get better again
And such soft, cottony diapers
Held with pastel-headed pins:
All softness and gurgle and coo.

But even baby has to go away sometimes;
The little blue eyes glaze over
Like a doll's souless eyes, of factory hardened glass
That only can stare in one direction now;
And their sweetly puffed blushing cheeks
Become multi-colored, like the rainbow-
Only, there's too many colors now.

In soft mud then, we must plant carefully
The little stilled hearts;
While we will tell them, they're only playing a part
In Jack and the Beanstalk.
And if you listen attentively, on some cold-bitten night,
Around the edges of the wind's cacophony
You might hear inconsolable crying, again.

It's just the orphan; the one
With the strange rainbows
Now blooming fearsomely, in his cheeks
And a worm cocooning, in his eye;
Alone under the ground, with all their softly rotting dreams
Beginning to turn gangrenous, inside of him
And all the pretty, pastel furniture is burning
On the bonfire, and Daddy's drunk again
And Mother's barricaded herself somewhere, and can't stop crying
And Hell is very cold indeed,
With nothing at all
Left of warmth
In spite of what the stories all say.