GRANDMOTHER

I don’t want to rock the world
I want the world to rock me
I loved you, through all your pain
And hurt and miseries.

…………

Seventy years plus
I’ve seen it all
Nothing can surprise me
Unless the Lord himself should come
That’s all that I ain’t seen.

…………

My children’s children
Come and gone
My children ain’t like me
The women they don’t seem so strong
Maybe they been rocked too long?

…………

I want to leave this rocking chair
I need to find an heir
I cannot go til there is one
Who will constantly care
to hear the troubles of the young
and wipe their tears away.
To tell the parents when they’re wrong
remind them that I’m there.
When the sea is just too rough
the tide is just too high
I’ll be sitting by the fireplace
To listen to their sighs.

…………

I’ll know that it is safe to leave
When visits start to cease
It’s not the lack of love for me
It’s just that they’re at peace.
Then I’ll get up from my old perch
And smile because I’ll know
That after seventy years or so
It is now safe to go

…………

The rocking chair is still around
I see it from my perch
And although there’s nobody there
It is a symbol of my care.
So sit and rock the world my child
Until it stops the pain
Until the seas once more are calmed
Till all the tears have drained.

…………

I left it there for you, you see
I knew you’d need it, just like me.
To rock the world away, my dear
To rock the world away.

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A Prayer

Down I Lay Me Fast to Sleep
I pray the Lord the peace to keep
We can’t trust the police anymore
No friendly face knocks at the door.
…………
My kids I cannot let outside
For fear they will have no place to hide
When drive-by shooting pierce daylight
Or strangers offer some delight they can’t refuse
Or even worse
Make no offer just use sheer force.
………… 
It hurts my heart to see each day
The youthful faces being taken away and
Buried in some cold, cold grave
Their futures gone, no world to save
And watch, the mothers torn with grief
The stone-faced fathers with disbelief
Watch as their sons are lowered down
No water baptismal just disheveled ground.
………… 
And as I lay me down to sleep
I ask the Lord the world to keep
You made this earth, though some don’t know
For every man his way to go
In peace and give as you have done
Unselfishly to everyone.
Instead man takes and kills, enslaves
The very things he ought to save
The land, the sea, the air pollution
The countries of this world, mass revolution
………… 
It is a wonder each day that I wake
I don’t ask you My Lord, my soul to take.
Amen 

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By: Desnee E. Young