Image of our future

My heart bleeds

every time I see a group of children

begging in the street

Their faces are smeared with desperation

I search for joy and playfulness in their eyes

But what I see is hunger and affliction.

Life is not a playground anymore.

Children cannot dance because the music

is the sound of screams for help.

They do sing but it is a sad melody

of the cruel world of today,

Full of hostility.

While for tourists we have

hospitality programs,

For our children we have nothing, really.

Yet we call them the seeds of the next generation

We call them our future

and the pillars of our nation.

What do we give them these days?

Riots,

Lay offs,

and all sorts of difficulties.

Look into their eyes

to see the picture

of our future.

-- By Permata Hamid