They wore tags.

All of them.

A narrow strip of card board,

Hanging from a string.

Passing the curious.

They might have been wares on a display

A showing of faces

Fashions.

But only the children stared back.

It wouldn’t be long before

The old ones sat gazing

Off into the distance

They’d sit still in the midst of the movement

They’d hear none of the cries and collisions

They’d be somewhere

In the far blue mountains

Their past

The best of life

It was there

The young would dream at night

But there’d be shacks to mend

Doors that didn’t fit

And cracks in the sunken floors

There’d be winds to deal with

Mile high heat and cold

There’d be barren to claim

And there’d be a need to learn

The price tagged children in doll sized clothes

Wouldn’t know the watch towers

Weren’t trees that grew from the ground

Nor would they know that

Warnings were on the walls

Signs on the wire

They’d play

They’d chatter with the soldiers

And never know they were guards

Who would kill

They’d never be afraid

Never be sad

Abused

And yet one day

They’d begin to hate

What happened would happen to them.

Found poem in Japanese piece- Mrs. Rush has original