Every Day

Every day I see faces

I will never see alive:

a boy who could have run away,

played dumb and stayed

in some town in Thailand,

disappeared into a jungle in Brazil,

or buried his head in bible studies.

If he grew up in another land

he might be demonstrating

in some ivy league college

instead of hunting hostages

among desperate foes.

Who would have been his children?

What would they look like

and how would they have made

the world into a better place?

Every day those faces come to me,

the children of murdered soldiers,

their mothers raising them in woe.

The children that will never be.

The hopes that have been lost.

.