One teardrop,
For a peach-tree switch,
Stinging bare legs,
Another for the dear heart
Who wielded it.

A rivulet of regret
For time in academia,
Completing the course,
Not knowing
I did not know.

A tumbling brook,
Rushing over boulders,
For lives I could have touched,
For hearts whose pulse
I never felt.

Once in a life time,
A deluge,
For the love
I should have given,
But didn’t.

An ocean
Of salty tears,
Stretching over the horizon,
And on
Into the Land Beyond.