Ramblings on a Sentiment

She said,
'wouldn't it be nice
to wake with each morning
to the laughter of children?'

And I said,
'well, after a while
you get used to it,'
not meaning, of course,
that the laughter of children
is an odious thing.

It's nice to give wing
to the merry of kinder,
and bask in the splendour
of freest laughter.

Elsewhere laughter is in
short supply:
murder, trachoma, slavery,
coercion - human dignity
put in suspension.

There you'll find that 
nothing grows
and the only laughter
is windblown, the 
murderous murder,
a cacophony, of crows.
Where the vultures pick the land,
and the ruler's the gallows.

So yes... my reply to you.
Here goes:
it's nice to see children
blooming, flowering, arising
with the rose.
The bud outweighs the thorns:
people aren't born prickly
or sickly: we just make them so

by forgetting that the thorns
are just as much a part
of the flower, and that
each deserves to peel open into
its fullest, reddest power.