Kindness to Animals
By Anonymous
Little Children, never give
Pain to things that feel and live:
Let the gentle robin come
For the crumbs you save at home—
As his meat you throw along
He’ll repay you with a song.
Never hurt the timid hare
Peeping from her green grass lair,
Let her come and sport and play
On the lawn at close of day;
The little lark goes soaring high.
To the bright windows of the sky,
Singing as if ‘twere always spring.
And fluttering on an untired wing,-
Oh! Let him sing his happy song.
Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.
Ice Cream Truck
By Terri Kirby Erickson
From blocks away we heard the mechanical
music the ice cream truck chimed all over
the neighborhood, calling to kids like the Pied
Piper as we darted into our houses begging
our parents for change to buy Nutty Buddies
and banana popsicles, orange pushups
and ice cream sandwiches. Once the truck
stopped on our street, we swooped like seagulls
around the open window so the ice cream man
could take our money and hand out whatever
treats we asked for, which were always better
than we remembered from the last time his boxy,
hand-painted truck rolled around—the cold,
creamy confections freezing our tongues and
sliding down our parched throats as fast as we
could eat them—the taste of summer lingering
just long enough to make us wish for more.
From A Lake of Light and Clouds
