Death of a Toddler
POETRY FORMAT, 3 Oct 2016
Barbara Millar – TRANSCEND Media Service
O, Syrian child, armies of refugees, huddled together
on rotting boats, on a fickle sea, washed ashore
like detritus of a shipwrecked land:
death by hunger
death by mortar
death by fire
death by water.
You were a little piece of heaven
born amid the ruins.
Above your head through shattered stones
a crescent moon appeared
like the pale, velvet flesh of your eyelids
in a land where the Tigris and Euphrates
cradled an empire.
Your life was priceless like the others.
Like the Prince of Angels,
You had a golden smile.
Yet not even a god can bring back the dead.
Your eyes radiant as embers;
two jewels polished by a mother’s glance.
So loved were you by all the world who stood idly by
while your nation burned.
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Barbara Millar is a free-lance writer living in Northern California, USA.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 3 Oct 2016.
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