THE CHILDREN WILL PLAY

Michael Peterson

1974

Though the walls may crumble,
the nation totter and fall,
the Children will play.

Though hurricanes howl,
the sky be filled with demons,
and groups be pitted against each other in hate,
the Children will play.

While the pusher promises freedom
and delivers a hellish death,
While a man, old and worn, lies
cold in the lonely street.

While the crap dice roll
and the bitterness of dreams denied
swell swiftly into rage,
the Children will continue to play.

And they will laugh and cry and run and shout and leap.
Amid the fury of the icy death of hope
that threatens to engulf them
the children know the joy of living.

Written in the East New York section of Brooklyn as part of the
authors participation in an inner city program with poor children
called Shiloh.

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