Help Me to Help Them Love

Giving away things seems easier
for the old.
What I treasured at twenty —
would fight to keep —
sixty years later
can easily go to a youngster
who will treasure it.
What if I’d passed it by for fear
of having to
give it up?
Both would be robbed – I of the joy of
holding and passing the joy,
the youth of treasuring it for it was mine.
Meaningless? Worry is meaningless.
God, help me see those people miserable
as The Teacher. Help me to help them love.

A Time for Verse
A Time for Verse: Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes by Barbara B. Rollins