Withered Chances
When just a boy, he broke the beauty, broke
A peony. Then later, decades on
He still remembered how he felt the choke
Of anger like the pain a marathon
Participant endures when he sustained
His father’s wrath. It rankled still beyond
Just years. Much longer than that race, it stained
His memories of the man despite the fond
Ways Papa would have treated him in love
So many times the growing boy forgot,
Most probably. They should have been above
The sadder souvenir, that one-time blot.
..But now the older man is dead, the wan
….Heart wishes that the grudge had been withdrawn.