Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Common Ground is the physical and spiritual ground that we share together while alive on good ol' Planet Earth. Wayne Dennis Kurtz.
Common Ground is the physical and spiritual ground that we share together while alive on good ol' Planet Earth. Wayne Dennis Kurtz.
A poem by Ina J. Hughs
ReplyDeleteTranscribed by Wayne Kurtz
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind
barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new
pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we shouldn’t be
caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of
dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget
their money.
We pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind
them,
page two
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store
and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and
never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the
carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream
in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves
to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
page three
We pray for children that want to be carried,
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don’t get a second chance.
For those we smother...and for those who will grab
the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
Ina J. Hughs
from the book A Grateful Heart
Conari Press Berkeley, California