There Are No Children Here Poem by Violet Llewellyn

The untrained eye
Walks down the street
And sees children
But they're not children
There are no children here

Adults look back
With hungry eyes
And someone thinks
''They're just children
With a mother and a father
Never any fear''
And they kid themselves
As there are no mothers
No fathers
Because there are no children here

Terror doesn't care
As they cry over there
It lets someone stare
Through the sight of a gun
Seeing everyone
And just for fun
Shoot them

People rush around crying
''But they were just children!
They were just children! ''

A man with a gun
Turns and runs
But as he does they hear
''They aren't children''
And
''They weren't children''
And
''You need to know:
There are no children here''

No one makes a sound
Listening to the truth he's found
And they know:
It's our fault
We didn't save them
We could have saved them
If we cared
There would be children here