The Challenge Poem by Eliot Buckner

Think of the challenges faced by all those others today.

As the sun set over Sierra Leone,
the mother to feed her child,
the challenges she will face tomorrow,

The onlooker from the slums over the rising new world metropolis,
as the views from Hampstead heath to the shard,
the short physical distance of many worlds.

The rich man,
gifted,
talented,
shrivelling his life away in his perfect rags to riches story.

A man is his by a car on a street in Dubai,
he will recover,
all humans do.
Learn to love or loathe?

Full circle to Europe,
rape or harassment,
over and forever on-going,
recovering and bleeding,
I wonder which is worse.

The boy alone on his bed,
faltering between a new purpose,
or the default path.
Easy, easy,
hard, hard,
he will succeed or fail only before the lord.