A tear falls

One tear falls.

Trembling, it rolled across his cheek then
down the bare downy shoulders of the babe
Clutched close in his arms.
As he passed the child back to the mother
The tear slid onto her hands and she flung it away
It flew
And hit upon the shaggy coat of a passing dog
Who shook his pelt of gold and the tear
Sailed into the air, caught by the wing of a passing sparrow,
Who swooped and dived and ruffled his grey feathers and
The tear fell into the gutter travelling through the city sewers
And finally out to sea.

For ten years it bobbed within the salty ocean until it was sucked up
By the clouds
And carried to a small town where it fell down upon the golden head
of a boy.
It rolled onto his face and the boy wiped it away and stared
For a moment
At the trembling drop between his fingers,
And incomprehensibly
Wondered
Why his father went away.
One tear

Falls