Jade

Jade is a child, who is eighty years old

Delight, delight shines in her pale eyes.

Laughter is her medicine, she says it keeps her young,

And she never lies.

Bitterness, she has never known, although she has seen

All of life's murderous deceits.

She weeps for the innocent, but is amused by the proud

In all their conceit.

Holding the drunken soldier, in his wild delirium,

She does not to avoid his fetid breath.

Gently she runs her fingers through the smallest child's hair

And fears not death.

Patterns keep on changing, she lives each strident hour

That clangs and rings down all the days.

For love it is everything, this world's many masks

And all its touching ways.