Those Ungrateful Teenagers: An Elder's Viewpoint Poem by Dr. Lalita Smith

Those ungrateful teenagers ~got a lot to learn 'bout life!
Hard work is something too good for 'em.
While I was young, we worked from sunrise to sunset;
Wasn't hardly no idle time in between.
Momma and Daddy labored in tobacco and cotton fields -
backs bent; sweat dripping from their brow, beneath a scorching sun -
hardly a pail of cool water to dip from...

Those ungrateful teenagers ~ don't know the value of a day's work.
Ain't got no idea 'bout how to make or save a dollar,
but spend one, now that's another story!

I'de love for just one of 'em to unplug ~ I mean listen with their heart ~ our plight, our fight for freedom and civil rights ~ Martin's dream..
learn of the battles we fought and won, discover secrets 'bout how we overcome ~ with silenced tongue and no guns ~ bringing change into this nation so they could see diversie dreams fulfilled.

Those ungrateful teenagers ~ standing still in consternation;
thinking to have something they must kill ~ blowing lives away ~
remaining locked behind prison bars to stay.

Those ungrateful teenagers of this age must change their attitudes;
stop living wired up to CD's, laptops ~ dreaming off I-tunes,
lest they find the freedoms we've gained ~ lost in futuredays.
Let them pray:
'Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts.*'
So in future generations we'll not behold
Those ungrateful teenagers of their ~
living beneath the oppressor's control.

____________________
* Psalm 119: 134
July 5,2008 @ 10: 48 a.m. Nashville, TN