Don'T Cry, Child Poem by Nina Dringo

Don't cry, child
For children starving far away
For homeless people on the streets
Begging for change.

Don't cry, child
For those of us who have no dreams
Who live in dark holes
That we dig ourselves, laboriously - why?

Don't cry, child
For forgotten rainbows
Or melancholy rainstorms
For wispy clouds, always drifting away.

Don't cry, child
For who you are not
Or who you have been
For who you are.

Don't cry, child
For the last animal of it's kind
The mother who cannot feed her children
A planet in need.

Don't cry, child
When you stand on the edge of forever
And wish you could fly
And see the world at your fingertips.

Don't cry, child
For long-gone yesterdays
Or yearned-for tomorrows

Don't cry, child
For what you have done today
Forgive
Start a new day
Make it better than the last.