Neglected

Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

 
What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?
 

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?
 

Before this day is gone,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, wasted limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?
 

I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of their souls departing ...
mournful, and distant.
 

How pitiful our "effort,"
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.