Somewhere a mother weeps for her lost child;
Her heart is cloaked in desperate tears.
Bless those tears, for were those tears denied
The cruelest act on earth would kinder be.
Those silent tears would wend their way on high,
There to scream aloud a mothers agony.
Disgrace to all mankind would be implied
Before the seat of highest majesty.
What fools men are who scorn the humble tear,
For lost to them is loves humility.
His love is scant who lives retentive fear;
His sympathy is dulled whose eye is dry;
His heart is dead whose shame is in a tear;
For did the greatest man on earth not cry?
Can greater proof of love be found than this?
To shed a tear for suffering or success
Reveals a knowledge that all wise men know:
Success is not the platform at the pinnacle attained
Success is every footstep on the rocky path below.
His life is lonely whose tears he cannot share,
The one whose tears for others cannot flow.
Spare me the strength of men who cannot bear
The suffering of another's heart exposed.
Dead trees whose hallow hearts have been disguised
And hidden in the pretext of their strength,
Unknowing that herein their weakness lies,
And lost to them all that tears represent.
*Written after a newscast of a lost boy, Nov.1981.
Adeline Foster
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tears-236/
