New Poem "MERREK" by Sarah Page

Merrek

(A Poem for the Children)

1.

Children are profound treasures.

I will never forget how

when you were three years old

and we were playing with your Lite Bright
while the other adults were watching the Superbowl

you took out 2 christmas lights and

plugged one into the board

and put another next to it

and said to me

"This is you,

and this is me,

next to you."

I didn't think children

could express abstractions like that.

Perhaps this is what happens

when the world turns upside-down like it is -

the children become the wise ones

philosopher-sage artists after only three years.

2.

Perhaps I cannot stop adults from burdening

children with their problems and short-comings.

Maybe I cannot stop bombs

from being dropped where they sleep and go to school,

can't keep them from being blown up by land mines

in the fields where they used to play.

But, I can know that when these things happen

we are all closer to them than we think. 

These are OUR children getting hurt and blown up and killed,

OUR bombs and OUR soldiers fighting meaningless wars.

And I can protest,

and I can write this poem,

and I can write more poems like this one -

but I would have to be like a ghost of myself

to do nothing.