Baby’s First Rondeau

You take more care with fragile things
which know the arrows and the slings.
The wise esteem a mended vase
more beautiful for all its scars;
don’t take it for your cheap plaything.

A busted beak, a wonky wing.
You nurse that bird and it may sing
the ancient music of the spheres.
You take more care.

Those veterans with missing limbs.
The jasper who has lost her sting.
Those K.O’d fighters seeing stars.
The badly aged child superstars.
The puppet with the thinning strings.
You take more care.