A short preface to even shorter poem

I was too young to understand the depth and breadth of poetry when my high school English teachers tried to interest me in it it took adulthood and the loss of my mom and my wife to Alzheimer's and my son Ted bipolar and my youngest son Tony to suffer from grand mal seizures as I have written here several times my new and profound love of poetry was engendered by two English teachers one of home I married till death did us part and the other a soulmate who helped me enormously be a better teacher more recently I talked to my Spring Valley ladies book club into a let's all read our favorite poems to each other at our next outside meeting in April. Also there was an Ojibwe prayer Paul taken from adult coloring book of the painted ponies which was an influence that had been gifted to me when I was sent rehab for another knee replacement. The gift or was a former student and friend Cheryl Boyd finally, in my home I wrote my first Paul after watching TV one morning as the Confederate terrorists attacked our national capital. I cried for my country that they and also my two black grandchildren. There was that day in my mind the possibility of a lost democracy and the future president who could be another deranged egomaniac it was all a reminder that someday we or a future generation might have a choice between blaming the other hate. My thought to write a Paul was inspired by America's very young poet laureate who recited a Paul during the recent inauguration. I had promised them a call for a friend who lives too far away he slipped his hand into hers and felt the comfort of her response bias squeeze he thought the world is a beautiful and terrible place, deeds of horror are committed every moment and in the end those we love die, if all the screams of all Earth's living creatures were one pain it would surely shake the stars but we have love it may seem frail defense against the horrors of the world but we must hold fast and believe in it but it is all we have.