A photograph appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1994...a malnourished dying child trying to crawl to a UN aid post a kilometer away...watched over by a vulture just waiting for the child to die...
Kevin Carter zoomed his camera lens, that day in’94,
A starving child in Sudan, was knocking at death’s door,
One vulture and one journalist; both mere meters away,
Both with different agendas; but a dying babe their prey.
A world stood aghast and horrified, by that photo in the Times,
Starvation’s morbid clock unveiled, its ticking and its chimes,
But two would reap the benefit of this poor child’s demise,
Sudan much needed food and aid… and Carter, a Pulitzer Prize.
We dare not stand in judgment; for we were never there;
Africa is an angry land; fermenting poverty and despair,
“Don’t touch the sick and dying” Kevin Carter had been told;
He abandoned that poor child, as other scenes did unfold.
Plagued by haunting vivid memories, of Africa’s en-rapt pain,
Those abandoned starving children, surely drove this man insane,
He observed first hand, our tragic land, we seldom comprehend;
Driving him, just three month hence… his tormented life to end.
Lord when will the suffering cease, in Africa so sublime?
Will ever we be a land, free of hunger, strife and crime?
Will the image of Kevin’s photo, open up our ailing eyes,
And open up our deaf ears…to our hungry children’s cries?
Alf Hutchison
MT 19: 14 But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'
Alf Hutchison
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/africa-s-hungry-children/
