Flower Bud

The child is very precious. She smiles and so enjoys
to play with sticks and little stones, because she has no toys.
She lives inside a little hut of thatch, palm leaves and mud.
Appreciates, she does, so much a little flower bud.

She tries to educate herself. She cannot spell or read.
She questions other villagers determined to succeed.
Her time is not eventful and no schedule she must keep.
Each day is like the other ones until she goes to sleep.

The sounds at night are scary so she spends much time in prayer.
In Africa, it's not the same. There's terror everywhere.
The rebels have machetes and they do what they will.
Disgusting things and ugly things, they terrorize and kill.

And then one day it happened. They came with knives and guns.
And many had machetes, killed fathers, mothers, sons.
They even killed the little girls. How many, she's not sure.
They tortured, killed her parents while they were holding her.

She screamed and cried and screamed some more. They threw her to the ground.
but then this girl escaped them all with rebels all around.
She did survive two bullet wounds (left ankle and right side),
but many, many, many more cried painfully and died.

Now only God protected her in coma for two weeks,
so she can tell the rest of us life's answers that we seek.
We often do not listen though, for ignorance is bliss,
but we are so mistaken. What matters most is this:

Please choose the day you change your wish to live a life of ease
to focus on our Lord's command to help the "least of these".
Do not forget, that for us, Jesus spilled his blood.
So change your days and help another precious 'flower bud'.

This poem was a finalist in the January 2014 poetry contest