Date: 12/01/1995
Setting: Sophomore year of college
Form: Free Verse
Innocent childrenArtifact I: Original poem.
brought up in a world
of robberies and muggings,
of dealers and drugs,
of murder and death.
They have no choice.
To them this is nature
Defective in nurture.
They do everything
in their power
just to survive.
Their pain is incomprehensible
All the suffering
Swelling up inside them.
They can’t help
what they shall become,
But we can.
love the heart in those last lines..i know these children...have walked among them...and help them as i can...knowing i can not save all of them..or maybe any...
ReplyDeleteChildren's futures are shaped so much by their childhoods, aren't they. Yes, we can try to raise them the right way but, their paths are governed the choices they make, right or wrong. I wish there wasn't so much badness in the world.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece. Thought provoking.
I like that you kept your old poems ~
ReplyDeleteBut this is the sad reality, unless we can help them, they become part of that shadowy word too ~
Happy day to you ~
"this is nature
ReplyDeleteDefective in nurture" - those are the most powerful lines in this piece to me. Surviving is all they do. Def helps explain (although doesn't excuse) what they become.
I have a good friend who always tells me, "We aren't responsible for what happened to us as children, but as adults, we are responsible for doing something about it." I never forget that.