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Words - Aug 26, 2004 - Printable Version
- This Single Child
by bill faulk (1969)
A single child flees a burning hut And her scream is punctuated
By a shot from a soldier's rifle
And is silent ... silent forever.
What might this tongue that cried in pain
Have sung in happiness to you?
What future yes of the human worth
Or moving song of the human soul
Is choked by blood within her throat
Never ... never to be heard.
Small fingers clench and relax forever,
Turning loose what mighty sculpture;
What great poem or marvelous painting
Dies unborn in that cooling palm?
The shattered heart pulsates no more,
Empty now of understanding
And gentle act of tenderness
That you, my friend, will never know.
The struggling brain, the last to function,
Receives faint dreams from a fading world,
And then sleeps ... oh, no, not sleeps,
But dies, dies forever.
Bury with it unthought thoughts:
Visions that might have saved a world.
The eyes stare blindly
That might have wept.
The lips sag loosely
That might have laughed.
The legs flop limply
That might have danced.
The mind gapes empty
That might have dreamed.
I lift to you with accusing eyes
This single child ... this single child:
This seed of hope stamped out by war,
And I ask you; yes, I ask you:
What great cause was worth her life?
What great cause was worth this child?
This single child ... this single child.
Editor's note: This poem was written by my father (who was an officer in the U.S. Army of Occupation after World War II) on the way to a rally to protest the Vietnam War in 1969, during the aftermath of the My Lai massacre. I remember reading it at the age of thirteen, and being deeply affected by the human face he was able to put on the suffering that war inevitably brings. August 28th would be my father's birthday, had he not died of cancer last year. Since those involved in the Presidential election (on both sides) have seen fit to dredge up the memories of this most ignoble of wars, I believe this poem is extremely relevant. Never forget.
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