We Pray for Children
by Ina Hughes
We pray for children
who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled,
who stomp in puddles
and ruin their new pants,
who sneak Popsicles
before supper,
who erase holes in
math workbooks,
who can never find
their shoes.
And we pray for children
who stare at
photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound
down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never
"counted potatoes,"
who are born in
places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the
circus,
who live in an
x-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky
kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who sleep with the
dog and bury goldfish,
who hug us in a
hurry and forget their lunch money,
who cover themselves
with Band-aids and sing off key,
who squeeze
toothpaste all over the sink,
who slurp their
soup.
And we pray for those
who never get
dessert,
who have no safe
blanket to drag around behind,
who watch their
parents watch them die,
who can’t find
any bread to steal,
who don’t have
rooms to clean up,
whose pictures
aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are
real.
We pray for children
who spend all their
allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums
in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost
stories,
who shove dirty
clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from
the tooth fairy,
who don’t like
to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church
and scream in the phone,
whose tears we
sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares
come in the daytime,
who will eat
anything,
who have never seen
a dentist,
who aren’t
spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry
and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move
but have no being.
We pray for children who
want to be carried and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don’t get a second chance,
For those we smother...and for those who will grab the hand of
anybody kind enough to offer it. |
