A Child Of This Earth

I have neither money nor power and I often struggle against an oppressive world. I am one of the millions of children that the world forsakes, Abandoned and forgotten, not worth a minute of time.

I am a crime to the eyes, Lacking the proper colour and texture to make my life worth saving, and whatever cravings I have, they aren’t worth a paragraph in a newspaper.

I have been beaten and starved, maligned and misappropriated. I have been a victim of indifference or the pawns in quests for power.

If I cower in my weakness, if I have little strength to speak, So be it. Because my frail, thin voice is lost in the din of exploding bombs.

And if I beg, if I beg the world take care, it just isn’t fair. Because you need smart phones, DVDs and Microsoft. Born aloft on your wings of convenience like tourists in a world of pain. Your indifference falls like a torrential rain and washes away my world.

And every epitaph of how things should have been, how children are as precious as a diamond to the eyes, are all lies.

Please think of me, please think of me, whether in Iraq or Vietnam or Rwanda or Uganda, or any of the places you call Third World, and when counting out your stock certificates, your treasury bonds and your so called securities, when you calculate what they are worth, for once think of me for I am still a child of this earth.