Of Pencil Kind

Of Pencil Kind
© W. Scott Grant
Undated – between 1985 and 1992

My pencil was born
For only fifteen cents,
Priceless its life
As long as it writes.

Its eraser is youth
Fixing youthful errors.
When gone, so is youth
Grown up, adult.

When the point dulls
With lines thick and broad
In the sharpener
It grows older, but sharp.

The letters on its face
Tell the truth of pencil-kind
But five other sides
Are false, marked by teeth.

Its death is minor
Pencil-kind goes on.
Broken, small, or thrown away
The pencil of mankind.