It starts with children.
Don’t let them
Become the scared men
And women
We are today
Driven by stories
Falling in line
Though similar story tellers
Have fooled us time
And time again.
How can we fend
For ourselves
When we eat
The poison they sell
With a shovel
Adorned with excuses
Accustomed to the abuses
And our attitude is:
“No time” “not enough money”
Don’t want to lose this
Life we’re living
Of monotonous 9 to 5-ing
busied by addictive distracting
No reflection of the self
convinced we’re thriving
Thinking health
Is found by prescribing.
We’re just relying
On everyone but ourselves
Leaving no chance to develop
Our own generational wealth.
But that’s not weighed in money
It’s measured in values
And skills passed on
That will carry us through
No matter the political climate
The price of food
No matter the new fear or victim trend.
The message we send
When we subscribe
And pretend
That normal means
Whatever you feel
Each individual morning
Is the immovable reality of the day
And those who say
Otherwise, are insensitive.
Enabling is easier
Self-knowledge is too much effort
Self-healing is not mainstream
Yet in hospitals and care homes
We wait to be seen
But are forgotten
Better fed in some prisons.
In nature we must listen
Remember what we’ve been given
Here on earth
Before the other distractions
The big corporations
Fabricated societal expectations
Flip-flop for votes politicians
Because no matter how you twist your vision
Humans need food and water
A baby is made
By a mother and a father
Nature has important patterns
Like: spring, summer, fall, winter
Perspectives are gained
In past and present for future
But the only thing you can change
Is what you do with the now
So let children live slowly
It seems we’ve forgotten how.
by Kayla Henry
Watch the poem on YouTube
Copyright © 2022 Kayla Henry
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this poem may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a review.