What have we done?

Tags

children, fear of strangers, parents, social setting

I went to a local festival yesterday
The children’s section was full of rides
Jumping houses, rock-climbing walls
And all sorts of dizzy-inducing contraptions

There were art booths where they could make sand art bottles
Decorate a pumpkin
Shoot marshmallows out of a pipe gun (popular purchase item)
Rubber band guns
Carved wooden swords and knives with sheaths

Many of the children had their faces painted
In delightful artistic designs of butterflies, cats, dogs
I paused to comment how beautiful one of the
Designs was on one little girl who was with her father
She jumped at my speaking to her
Looked ready to run and shrunk in fear
She looked at me and said nothing
Her father pushed her along away from me
In a hurry

Hoping this was an aberration, the next child I saw
Was decorating a pumpkin
All I said was, “That’s a great looking pumpkin you’re doing.”
He looked at me – stared and went back to work, but moved away
Down the table, his face puzzled and guarded.

My husband said, “Guess there’s no speaking to children anymore.”
I know what rules parents have for their children
I support having your children aware

I felt weird all day – just for having spoken to children
I didn’t know – what have we done?
Are we managing our children’s world to be so limited
As to have them be afraid all the time in a social setting?
To manage who they interact with, manage their play
Under the guise of protection?
Who do we end up with? Fearful adults?

I don’t have any answers. It was just unsettling.

Everything Lost

Tags

children, death, gaza, war

These photos and eye-witness accounts are difficult to un-see.  Please use caution when viewing.  This link is from the New York Times.

Gaza deaths

Everything Lost

Too tempting to resist

A day at the beach exploring

After being kept indoors by anxious adults

With childhood eagerness, but with a knowledge of danger

always present in his young life, one told his younger brother to stay home.

Running through the sand

sunlight all around,

the cousins laughed.

a distant shack held a promise of adventure

An enemy soldier saw movement at the shack from his high vantage point

He moved the deadly rocket into position, adjusted for the targets and fired

Mohammad, Ismail, Zakariya and Ahed, all under 11 years old, died on the beach

You can see them running in one photo and in another, you see a young boy prone on the beach, his little legs twisted in the sand.

People at the beach ran to them, dragging them away

but all were lost, shrapnel entering their young bodies and ending their lives.

Their relatives screamed and cried.  A nation torn apart recoiled at the horror.

They lost everything for a promise of play at the beach.

In what kind of a world is that okay?

 

Observation – April 30, 2013

Tags

30 days, 30 poems, children, Fry's, gaming, NaPoWriMo

My mind was on buying

Watercolor computer paper

As I pushed my cart through the aisles

At Fry’s

When I saw a man with two kids

Playing the in-store television video game.

He held his little daughter on his lap

As he gripped the game console

Playing the game with his son.

She caught my eye

Not because she was so cute

In her pink ruffled dress

But the look on her face.

She was in a trance;

She stared at the screen

Her mouth was partially open

She didn’t move.

She looked suspended in time.

I glanced at the video screen

And her father and her brother

Were killing zombies in a gruesome manner

Blood was flying, grunting and screaming was blaring

From the speakers

Limbs were being chopped off

Inhuman monsters filled the screen

With their impending doom.

The girl in the pink dress

Just stared and stared

What was being forced into her psyche?

I wondered

Is she learning that this is something to be celebrated?

That her father and brother are happy

And congratulating each other on the battle well-fought?

It’s family time

With those images in her brain of spattered blood

And the dying screams in her ears.

Poor kid.