The Mall-road on a Winter Evening
Memories orphaned,
wandering in the market-place and crying
to be held,
crying and lost
as they cannot find the way to the heart that held them close,
will not let me sleep.
Walking through the mall-road of this hill-town
as the evening listens to the sounds
of children crying in the dark,
sticking their stub-nose against
the locked glass-panelled windows
that show-case the toys they cannot reach,
my heart cries though I know,
these children will vanish from this town in a day or two.
They have to grow up while their mothers will age,
they will carry the burden of time
on their broken backs, tired of sadness and tears.
In this growing dark on the mall-road I hear
the lament of hunger and and the children longing
for the things withheld--
things of all sorts that lack a definition today
in this lost and fleeting hour.
Go away children, the mall-road is not the place where you should linger long.
You are not yet ready to pay the price
for the things that entice and
swallow you before you know
the difference between that which calls you
and that which sends you off
in an endless pursuit of the toy you could not reach.
The mall-road is a fairy-tale that hides the truth
which your mother holds back from you.
She does not want to see you cry;
she does not want you to learn
the truth of the mall-roads on such dusky hours;
she does not want you to let go of her hand
and lose your way back home.
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