POEM 08

Scout and Jem spent that summer smothered in the heat and sweltering indifference of consuming hate and racial division.

One man, their father stood in the gap and represented innocence, never needing to lie.

He garnered a certain respect from many, but a lie, a vicious untruth told to combat shame and lustful desire killed the innocence he sought to protect.

The children were attacked and broken nearly strangled by that three strand cord of hate, ignorance and fear by the father of the Lie.

For he knew the truth and it boiled inside of him. Jem took the brunt of the assault as Scout scrambled home to fetch brave Atticus.

That fateful day that may have been bathed in the blood of the children, saw the Lie’s father fall to a fatal blow dealt by a familiar stranger who came to their rescue.

Boo saw the duty and the deed needed and innocent himself, leapt from the shadows to perform it.

As matter-of-factly as he did placing toys for Jem and Scout in the hollowed out hole of an old Mulberry tree in the yard, Boo standing behind the door, had been the

One to gift the children their lives with their innocence still intact.

A summer that started with rabid madness ended in peace and comeuppance.