Bodies of Their Bodies

grateful for the backward glance of memory
to those days when life was about bottles
and diapers, walks in the park and baking
cookies for little hands and greedy mouth,
when the mornings were written in wonder,
months honey-combed with baby kisses
and the fascination of intrepid first steps …

in solidarity with other parents i will them
memories laced with gratitude, not the pain
of lost dreams, of lost bodies of their bodies,
the fragile students silenced in the corridors
of relative privilege after an insane rampage
or the everyday streets streaming blood in
Harlem and Bayview/Hunter’s Point where
uncelebrated kids live foreshortened lives

… and those are the children of democracy
there are these too, children of oppression
what of them? – tiny starved brown humans
that line the arenas of hunger and war, where
soundless tears of voiceless parents drown
the vestiges of hope while we  share our pain,
so sure the world will grieve along with us

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
Photo credit ~ Vera Kratochvil, Public Domain Pictures.net

JAMIE DEDES ~ My worldly tags are poet and writer.  I’m in my fifth year of blogging at The Poet by Day, the journey in poem, formerly titled Musing by Moonlight.  Through the gift of poetry (mine and that of others), I enter sacred space.