Children In Deep Lamentations (War And Invasion In Ukraine) Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

Every little inch of separation
from a mother, a child screams!
Every explosion of a bomb
a body's child shrinks in fear!

This child shivers and hugs
his body tight with all his might,
searching in every dark corner
to find the face of his father
who bids him goodbye for war.

The children cannot understand
the torturing sirens in the air
the bombings and shelling
that turned their homes
into flames of fires, and ruins.

Hear the children's lamentations
over the deaths of their mothers,
fathers and grandparents,
playmates and neighbors
and the loss of their homes.

Man-made wars in spring,
What have you done to
abort the joy and future
of these precious children?
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(after February 24,2022)