Little white lies

Little white lies
 
This cold, familiar world seems so hardy,
but don’t you believe it –
 
it’s but a fragile, shimmering dream,
liable to disappear at any moment.
 
To grasp the gist of this poem,
read between the lines
 
after the words have petered out.
Their white bleakness is the message,
 
the emptiness that frames our lives,
the comfort we take in the familiar
 
as we chatter casually among ourselves
from our various foxholes.
 
Take care, o child, take care.  Let not the world
entangle you in the web of its little white lies.