With skills too few to know the needed touch
when heart responds without a spelling force,
the carny barker wordlost strikes too much
but lover hurt admits no spirit coarse.
With innocence too great to hope ignore
when simple circumstance delivers fear,
the starry eyed transforms the daily bore
but claimed still only claims the fleeting cheer.
With insight bright too sudden to digest
when life announces life anew begun,
the unemployed becomes by ploys obsessed
but plotter loses spoils before deed done.
Redemption is a possibility
if you can others show what you now see.
~The Needed Touch, a sonnet reflecting on Carousel, the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein,
by Robert S