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The Children

I entered upon an open field set apart from the road on which I walked. It seemed far. And distance messes with the mind. But I believed I saw a chainlink fence, barbed wire at its top. It circled a building round and round keeping all within.

Seeing this I did believe I should get back to the road. For darkness stands and I still, await the light that's at the end. Yet something still called me back to the fence that I had seen. A chilling haunting ghastly wind that was blowing through the grass.

I turned back.

As one does when faced with such a chill.

For mystery is appealing.

And strangeness has an attraction.

As curiosity leads on.

I followed.

 There I saw the children. About two hundred there must have been. They slept on beds of stone, a single blanket for the cold. For their care, there were more children. As kids take care of kids.

Take a child, place a guard and still, it's all the same.

Where are the parents?

Where have family's gone?

And above all where is love?

Who leaves a child to the stone to sleep?

Who leaves a child all alone to be?

You'd think the world knows better. But does the world know better?

Maybe we're all still children pretending we know what we're doing. Maybe we're all still children thinking we know what's right. Give a person age and they'll grow wrinkles on their face. But wrinkles aren't knowledge, not experience nor wisdom.

One day we'll look in the mirror and wonder where our life has gone.

One day we'll look and realize all the wrong we've done.

One day we'll look and really do what's right.

But by then will it be too late?

Childish minds lead childish minds and a childish mind is mine.

For none have grown, though body's age and history's laid flat.

Perhaps what the world truly needs to know

Is how to grow up.



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