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.