Lesson Poem by Elizabeth Lindberg

The guy was just so snarly,
I took to him dislike,
the more that he was nasty,
the more my tongue would strike,

I struck out in my anger,
retaliated words,
that could not be unsaid,
and could not be unheard,

I didn't know his story,
had never tried to find,
the reason that this person,
was of the snarly kind,

then accidentally did I hear,
one day some people spoke,
about the snarly person,
who was the office joke,

one voice said she had
found a clip of paper by his desk,
from an old newspaper,
his name was in, no less,

survivor of an accident,
that took four lives, it said,
his wife and his two children,
were now amung the dead,

a driver had crossed over,
from the other side,
the driver had been drinking,
that day he also died,

suddenly a sense of shame,
filled my heart with dread,
I then regretted every
unkind word I'd ever said,

I know it's hard to understand,
a snarly person's way,
or what it is that makes them
say the ugly things they say,

but from that day, the lesson that
I learned, and keep in mind,
it doesn't make the world a better
place to be unkind