Life goes on around me Like a jungle without trees Swampy grass after a heavy rain Left wet by the humid breeze Sounds of the manic locust Lost where no one sees As I tend uselessly To things I don’t need Resting in a thoughtful stare I look a yard away A young one with a plastic cup Collecting sidewalk pennies as pay For cleaning up the sidewalk Of all the pennies she could find Placing them in her cup One penny at a time What a fortune she must have Maybe 7 pennies or more For she looked at them often What could she buy at the store But she didn’t try to count them Instead she stirred them with a stick Mixing them like a magic brew For some enchanted trick I continued on to tend to The things I don’t need Taking the trash to the curb And pulling another weed Then I glance again in wonder At the young one and her cup Now sitting in the swampy grass With her stick digging it up My curiosity kept me looking Watching her dig 7 holes And placed a penny in each one In hopes that it would grow And as I smiled and shook my head Looking up at the naked sky And foolishly wished I could see One more cloud come drifting by