A Poem For Scared Children Who Have No Voice

 

 

A Poem For Scared Children Who Have No Voice

 

I am tired today

 

I’m tired

of sleep one night

not the next

of so much fear haunting my bones

it wakes me long before the grey dawn

 

Will I have enough—

time

sleep

care

for my self

the small one who

is sometimes afraid

to go to sleep

and wants a story?

 

Will I have enough bedtime

stories for her?

 

And what about the child

ripped from her mother

at the border?

 

Does my voice matter to her?

 

Does me taking the

exquisite time

to let the small one

inside me

believe that her voice matters

 

matter to the child

at the border

in tears, afraid?

 

I want to believe it does.

That as I do not forget

the small one inside me

who feels forgotten

 

some part of the girl

I only see in a photo

on the screen

with black hair

and a red shirt

knows

she is not forgotten

 

It’s like prayer

travelling across miles

to reach the one I love

having surgery

in another country

 

It’s been proven

to work.

 

 

If I am writing

for the lost children

inside me

 

How can I not be writing

for the lost children

crying for their mothers

at the border?

 

Repetitive, yes

I am saying the same thing

over and over

 

So it sinks down

to the deepest layer of my

existence

 

Beyond the mind

with its fears and doubts

Beyond the body

with its weary aches

 

Down to the layer of oneness

the Soul

which we all share

 

Each of us on this blue planet

Unified in one soul

 

We belong

to one heart

 

Yes one heart

 

At the level of heart

I am not separate from

the child at the border

she is not separate

from me

 

I hold her

in my heart today

along with others

whose pictures I haven’t seen

 

and I hold the child in me

who is still afraid

to go to sleep

sometimes, not always

 

who is still afraid

to write the truth

sometimes, not always

 

It’s the patience

for sometimes

that my heart

asks of me

 

So all the lost children

all the broken off parts of me

all the shattered, scattered

fragments

of the One Soul

who don’t have

a safe home in the world

 

They all come home

in my poem

 

Yes—come, come

the door is open

 

This poem is as large

as my heart

which is infinite

as is yours

 

As powerful as prayer

or steel

as strong as an oak tree

a thousand years old

 

Yes, you are welcome

in my infinitely strong heart

 

the scared child of my own  inner life

the scared child at the border

 

The ones who have no voice

who seek a voice

who need a voice

 

Whose voice is everything

we need to hear

to heal our world

 

That child

That voice

is what lives

in my poem today

 

 

 

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