Candy Land

The swing that breaks the hanging bag
Sends candy bouncing all around:
The children rush, and pushing fuss,
And knock each other to the ground.
No thoughts of others—only self—
Where skewed desires all abound:
They rush and push and even kick …
For candy they will punch and pound.

The seeking of it hardly stops
When all the revelry and sound
Diminish by the quiet yard
Where some young kid is ‘candy crowned’.
What festers is a bitter taste,
A blight from loss, a wound profound,
‘Til vengeance from ambition breeds
A greed that makes the soul unsound.

But see how now some candy lies
Beside my foot, which none have found?
Note how my lack and little care
Shows peace that inly knows no bound.
Shun selfishness and lusty greed,
For many souls have in them drowned.
Go forth, therefore, and live as free—
A slave to no one’s ‘candy mound’.