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In Memory of Ray

My heart is a toybox,
too easily shared.
It holds a random collection
of toy-soldier-brave hopes
and once fire-engine-bright dreams
with the paint chipped off;
and the fragile shells of unfulfilled wishes
which, when held to the ear,
echo the sea-sounds of my soul.

I've offered my toys to many;
"They're ugly!" I've been told--
though to me, because they are mine,
they are precious.
I could never understand
why otheres did not find them so.
And frightened and alone,
I'd go on to the next.

And then you stumbled into my life,
little-boy kind,
with your own little box of toys
nearly as battered as my own.
Shy, we spread our toys on the ground,
and each saw in the other's joys
wondrous bits and pieces and sparkly things
that we could use to build a wall
against the world.

But because we are sometimes frightened,
and because we do not always see
the same things in the same way,
we each may be tempted
to pick up our toys and move on--
even knowing that what we hae together
will probably never happen again
in all the rest of our lives.

So let us sit together,
and play.
Not just for a while,
but until it is time
for us to go.