I had been wanting to write "Who Will Cry?" for a long time. I wanted a poem that would tell about those things that makes me shed a tear and I wanted everyone to find a verse that would be meaningful:
WHO WILL CRY?
I watched the running of a real tough race,
The contest demanding, a grueling pace,
A winner triumphant, hands raised high.
I see the eyes of the losers, their hopes
-- I cry.
A story of fiction in a book or a show,
Something to read, a story, you know.
Make believe tales of persons who try,
I'm part of the quest! Sometimes I cry.
On a pillar of fire it leaps so high,
The most powerful of machines
for humans to fly.
The goal is bright in the midnight sky,
Apollo was launched--I rejoice and cry.
Billowing clouds of smoke and fire,
Hopes and dreams soar ever higher.
A flaw in a part: and seven die,
The Challenger explodes--I cry and cry.
A song of love with words you feel,
Songs of peace to the world appeal.
Song of protest or joys so high,
I sing your song in my heart, and cry
I see the sun on a new born day,
Watch it set when it goes away,
The supreme artist paints the sky,
With colors vibrant, soft, I cry.
Love that's won or love that's lost,
As through the waves of life you're tossed.
Love that's yours as time moves by,
When that love moves on, oh how I cry.
A person wronged in truth or deed,
Justice stifled by avarice and greed.
Life extinguished when it's wrong to die,
Life is sacred, when taken...I cry.
A gentle person struck down ill,
A wasting virus that lurks to kill.
Nothing, today, can set them free,
And so they say, "Who'll cry for me?"
A people oppressed, their freedom crushed,
Expressions of rights ground in the dust,
The truth denied by powers that lie,
I reach out to these people, and I cry.
I cry out to my world, "Can't you see, can't you see,
The hurt you're doing to yourselves and me,
The planet you're killing,-- Why won't you try?"
Perhaps they can't hear me...and so I cry.
1/15/90 L.C.J.