Saturday, April 20, 2024

DECLAIM

by Mark Svendsen

for the children


PBS, March 8, 2024


Standing at the crossroads, black with traffic

Waiting for the little green man to tell me I could go

When a child, quick as a nightmare, broke from its mother’s hand

Ran beside me, looking back at her, shrieking, into the road.

Without thought I dived, catching at the child

Bringing it to me and to its mother,

Just as you in my place would have done.

Sometimes, my people, your child becomes my child

Your love becomes my love

Your blood is mine.


But now! What are we thinking now, my people?

For years the children have played, been pushed

Into the middle of the road

And we have turned our face away.

But now, when we are forced to see them

When we are forced to see

We turn our face again?


What are we thinking my people?

Let tears wound our cheeks

For what we’ve done.

Let fear wound our minds

That we think so.


Tell me you love them my people, or I am lost.

Show me you love them my people, 

Or all we are together is gone.



Mark Svendsen prefers concrete to other more porous materials with which to pave his mind but, even then, cracks eventually appear and poems, like weeds of the mind, take root and must be dealt with summarily. He lives in Zilzie, Australia with his partner. There, she writes music, and he writes things – in an attempt to maintain homeostasis.