Look at the bones of the children

they come from our broken-ness.

Look at the bones of the children

they come on the wings of what went wrong.

How they come to us now ;

lu lay lu la, thou tiny little child.

They come as a warning on the wings of storm

that faces the world and our broken-ness.

The bones are asking us the old questions,

they are an augury read them well.

Look at the bones of the children

they are ciphering a question about choices.

The bones ask about the choices we are

making that come from our broken-ness

from the bones of the children who cry out

for healthcare and the rights of the people

It comes from the bones of our children

from deep inside austerity

from our broken-ness, from the bones of the children

in a waste tank, from the children sold,

the woman beaten into signing a form,

from a famine of ideals, from the heart of a master

who would control us, who would silence the voice

of the bones of the children, the rights of a people

born on the winds of our broken-ness.

Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons received The Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2009 , and The Royal Literary Fund Bursary in 2010. Her most recent collection is St. Michael and the Peril of the Sea (Salmon Poetry).