Crutch


Destined to be someone's three-limbed poster child
for peace, for war, for nothing and much more,
they made me their one man parade,
a lifetime limping billboard for
the strangers who will never know my name;
who've now moved on,
forgotten the cause which prompted them
so many years ago
to plant a mine along my path to school.
Without a foot, without a leg,
without a way to class again,
I began another education
where pain and sorrow taught me long.
Sweaty years of stumbling as the object of sad eyes,
the target of a taunt, the last in line
have roughly led me to a place
where God's embrace of fierce gentility
has gripped me so I can't let go;
for I am not the first child He
has rescued from the public cross
of someone seeking private justice.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown