Poem of a couple weeks ago

We've been so busy this month being out and about and such, I never got around to posting this one:

A Pledge of Allegiance
July 7, 2008

With sparklers in her eyes
and her chin on her knees,
she tells me

Democracy
just doesn’t
mean that
much to me.

And I wonder what
could be more important:
horses with flowing
manes or injured hooves,
stray cats in search of
a safe place to purr,
the fate of fairies
with broken wings,
or the twin dangers of
thunder and lightning.

I lazily scratch an itch,
lightly unsettled on this
slightly cloudy holiday.
Maybe
she says,
when I’m older
she says,
it will matter more.