The Loss of Innocence and Wonder.

The sound of laughter ripples through the air

Children playing without a worry or care

The slightest whisper of a breeze, in a cloudless sky

A little girl’s eyes full of wonder, catches a beautiful butterfly

Then giggles in delight as she watched it flutter away

While the adults share the latest gossip of the day

Next she finds a little daisy and then a buttercup

She laughs and struggles to stand up

A moment of reverence and awe she tries to share

But the adults are too busy to notice or care.

Oblivious to the little girl’s cry of delight

More intent on what happened in Eastenders last night

The drone of a dreaded lawn mower, a harsh intrusion

Ready to take part in an orgy of destruction

People playing at God in an attempt to impose order

Planting in perfect lines, flower beds and border

In a maddening race to find order and perfection

A fleeting moment of triumph and satisfaction

No thought for the wildlife neither bird nor bee

As if in a frantic rage to destroy all that is wild and free

The hedgerows, the wildflower and weeds 

Have long been the casualties 

Poisoned by chemicals sprayed on their shoots

Mangled and massacred, torn up by their roots

The next morning the little girl rushes out to see her flowers

But they have vanished like the April showers

Mowed down, in the war between man and nature

Metal and machine versus every living creature

And no one hears her broken hearted cry

Or to answer when she asks why ?

C. Denis Murphy 07 June 2021.