In the streets of Johannesburg you will find groups of children, some as young as 7, grasping paper bags filled with glue that they suck the air from as they sit in doorways and on pavements or in empty lots. And each sniff lets them laugh in the face of their suffering. These are the street children, homeless, motherless, fatherless, the detritus of a system that makes them invisible. This poem is about those children.
Small pink-bellied hands
Like thirsty tongues
Licking at my heart,
And brown eyes sad
Beyond my understanding
They break me, these small dark
Children of the narrow streets,
These wisps of wild uncared for lives-
Round grey balls for knees,
And skin as rough as sun-dried leather.
They sniff, they shout, they smile,
There is joy like spilled sunshine,
There is life- run, jump,
fall -
And never cry
Where is their pain?
The same sun warms their sun-dried skins
As shines upon my garden wall
And makes the diamonds dance
In a million scattered drops
That flow from my sweet scented fountain.
Those drops that fall
And dry to nothing
On the hot white concrete floor,
Do they sparkle any the less
Before they fall?
Fiona Jamieson