Monday, March 12, 2012

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.

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