Image Credit – thinkprogress.org

An infant’s cry shatters another sleepless night

A mother, devoid of life sustaining nectar clutches her baby to her breast

A father weeps silently, drinking in his plight as if hemlock

Sadness shelters the family under its ramshackle peak

Hopelessness feeds their malnourished appetites

What excuse can be waged in this modern year

Brown or white, skin is of no significance

It is not a barrier to the ravages of hunger and poverty

Saying it does not exist does not make it so

As ignorance is not an excuse for blindness

Is there not enough for all

Are not sunken eyes and bloated bellies reason to intervene

Reason to give voice to the cries that no one hears

To tears shed that no one sees

To dreams dreamt that no one believes

Compassion and empathy must foster change

The sighted must open the eyes of the blind

The deaf must be compelled to hear

This is humanities charge

~~ D. R. DiFrancesco ~~