Stars in The Sand

Faded  scraps of paper ‘’I love you’’ under a pillow,

 ‘long ago time’

The world spins on, bruised but unbroken, as the silent wishes of  a mother’s

Love tucked beneath pillows, drift upward, mingling with the restless night

Stories as old as time handed down from father to son

 They are killing children all over the world

Bombs, bullets, starvation, they are killing them in every way

They are killing them every day

Soldier, sailor, beggarman, thief, dance to the tune of  ‘All the President’s Men’

Every day they slay daughter and son tossing them aside like rags

Flags are flying

Why can’t we stop the dying? I’m tired of trying to understand

In this land sorrow darkens the edges of daily news, only hope threads its quiet way through the tapestry of hell

A child’s pleading sobs echo into the dust as she picks a stubborn bloom of a flower rising from the ruins

A gentle stillness where sacred devotions and emotions come together like old friends

The clasp of hands, the silence of prayers unspoken, dreams refusing to be buried beneath the bloodied rubble

After the night’s raining hell a morning’s quietude, hearts find the right to meld rage and courage from scorched fragments of hope

Hungry children drawing stars in the sand beneath a blue sky cross stitched with white vapour lines of sorrow