On the Death of Children

A call in the night, a whisper or
cry unheard by a child burnt by
the bomb’s fire in Gaza, another
torn to pieces by the rocket’s
shrapnel in Sderot, or 7-year
old Jaslyn Adams shot in a
McDonald’s drive- thru in Chicago.
Children are murdered, I hear
no jubilant choir to take up their
lives, the words I write about them
are shrouded in black, our tears
held hostage by the language of
liars in expensive suits while we
seek to find a new language to
recover the hoarse and homeless
voice of humanism’s plea for peace
and morality, a plea as unheard as
the children’s last sounds in the night
they were not ready for death.
The people are deaf to their cries
that are old news and far away,
eager to hear the good news for
their neighborhood: that little bistro
around the corner is about to reopen,
can’t wait, their Bouillabaisse is to die for.

This article was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2021 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.