Million Stars In The Sky (Child's Play) Poem by Samah Khan

The sky does not sport a single white cloud
Where unicorns are said to fly
And chemical death hovers like a dulling shroud
A promise of death before we die
I do no find consolation in number
And tears do not do much but aggrieve me more
I await a sweet-smelling but bitter slumber
Where life will no longer be a putrid sore

I wonder at times why God lets us go on
Even after we’ve done nothing but disobey,
Perhaps it is relative to the mother who births
A child and spends her life hiding its sins away.
I’ve heard of magic and miracles of life
And I’ve heard of repentance and forgiveness,
Maybe if we all prayed hard enough
God will absolve our multitude of grievances.

I’ve heard of two children who made play across a border
Where few men were brave enough to chart,
And two children made play defying the man-made order
And unlocked the innocence that presides over their heart.
They found a way through the dirt-ridden line
Drawn by steel rods and wiring meant to kill,
They deceived nature and science and ignored law and time
To find loyalty and trust and friendship in goodwill.

I found them playing somewhere between
The contrived lands smudged with laws of the realm
Wonderfully happy and healthily unclean
They dared to rebel and overwhelm
What adults had prescribed as being obscene
And two boys sailed a ship, each with a turn at the helm

Without words they said what no language could
They spoke miles without looking back
They exchanged smiles and glee and sorrow as we would
Without bartering a single word forth-and-back.
They played without fight, for they could not argue,
They basked in the delight of each other’s exultancy
And their vigor for life with each second accrued
Until the wickedness was outweighed by its discernable potency.

If only we could breach the barrier of language
And touch each other’s heart with the very soul of us
No nation would crumble, no fight would ensue
As mere looks would be palatably enough.
Were it that we were all by tongue mute
We would reach out and help without distinction
And there would be no war, no fight, no dispute
No discrimination and thus no prejudiced friction.
All we would have is each other to hold
And so we would without a single word
And the world could once again let their gaze rove high
And speechlessly count the million stars in the sky