It was not time yet

It was not time yet.
No food could be found
For this little girl,
One among many
Little boys and girls
With nothing between
The sky and the ground
Except the hunger
And bombs all around.
No food could be found
For this little girl.
We know not her name,
How it is pronounced,
Yet none are to blame
For this stiffened child
Who dreamt of heroes
Coming from the West
To help her sister,
To help her brother,
To help her father,
To help her mother,
Made helpless by war.
And she died last night,
She did not awake:
There was no mistake.
This is the reason:
Nobody is to blame.
It was not time yet,
To feed innocent
Children on the ground.
For men do abhor
An ugly ground war
No heroes were found
On the cold hard ground
For this little girl.
It was not time yet
To do what was said
Thought the President,
When going to bed
While one little girl,
One among many
Was starving to death
On the cold hard ground,
And in the morning
They wound this child,
In a clean white sheet,
Laid her in the ground,
Her body tightly bound,
With a winding cord.
No food could be found:
It was not time yet.
Heroes do no wrong:
It was not time yet.
So now she is dead
And in Kandahar
Bombs fell all around.
Yes they did they did.
No heroes could pause
To honor the clause,
To keep the promise,
To feed the children:
It was not time yet.
Hundreds of children
Lay dying, but now
Civilized men are
Afraid of the ground.
It was not time yet
For the alliance
To honor the clause,
To keep the promise
To feed the children.
Yet heroes were proud
Flying through the air
While this little girl,
One among many,
Was starving to death
Waiting for them to come
As they had promised:
It was not time yet.
First things must be first:
We must be careful,
We must have revenge.
We must not get hurt.
We are civilized.
So the child was wound
In a clean white sheet:
Is this what God wants?
Her father then asked,
And looked at his child,
Barely three foot long -
Around her a throng
Too sorry to weep.
Many more will die
Today and tonight,
It is not time yet
To save little girls
For the unknown god
Who did not want this
Little girl to die
For selfish defense.
No food could be found
For this little girl,
One among many
Little boys and girls
With nothing between
The sky and the ground
Except the hunger
And bombs all around.
It was not time yet.
Will it ever be?


By David Arthur Walters