From Left to Write: Hope's Dream

Young, elementary school kidlets stepping up to the podium, taking the microphone in hand, sharing their dreams for their classes' I Have a Dream presentation carved a niche in me.  They spoke from their hearts and touched mine.

Thinking on my response to reading Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement with From Left to Write this month, those speeches bubbled up.  This is a bit different than my typical post, but where both the book and those children's words took me.

Hope’s Dream

Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Ideas cut through the air, rolling across hundreds of thousands.
Orated ideals, shuttled forward through decades to come;
Words chauffeured through time, but not all lands.

“I have a dream…”
Children speak their own whispered hearts.
Trees for forests, healed and healthy parents, worlds without war -
They have a dream.
Breathing environments, cornflower blue skies, crystal streams channeling dirt-
They have a dream.
Kids free of fear, shining seas, feathered and furry friends left to roam free -
They have a dream.

Dozens of children hope for the wider world around them.
One child hopes for a world he came from, a world he knew.
A future holding more,
A future lacking less,
A future without dirt floors,
A future without empty bellies,
A future with hope.
He has a dream.

This post was inspired by the novel Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement.  Ladydi grew up in rural Mexico, where being a girl is a dangerous thing.  She and other girls were "made ugly" to protect them from drug traffickers and criminal groups.  Join From Left to Write on February 18 as we discuss Prayers for the Stolen.  As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.  Opinions and response are my own.