We went for a walk in the snowstorm last night with two little girls whose hands got cold throwing snowballs and eating snow. We shared our gloves with them. We carried them. We shortened our walk for them.
They are lucky girls with several adults eager to do all we can to ensure their well-being in the cold. Their father’s job is helping people who don’t have homes. They drove through the storm so he could go back to work today. Holidays are a busy time for his organization anyway, and now with the added cold and snow, people will be needing ‘resources,’ as he said. ‘Resources,’ like shelter, food, warm clothing and, maybe, human connection. In this winter holiday season, the contrasts between people’s resources are harder to ignore.
I hope it is okay to post this whole poem which I have seen posted on numerous other sites—thanks to the writer–it is obviously a poem that people appreciate.
Prayer for Children
by Ina Hughes
We pray for the children
Who sneak popsicles before supper
Who erase holes in math workbooks
Who can never find their shoes
And we pray for those
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 where 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 hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them
Who watch their parents watch them die
Who can’t find any bread to steal
Who don’t have any 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 into 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 anyone
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep
We pray for children
Who want to be carried and for those who must
For those who never give up and for those who don’t get a second chance
For those we smother and for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.