Home Learning Task 1- Children in the Darkness

Children in the Darkness


There are children in the darkness
Who have not seen the light
There are children in the darkness
Who someone will teach to fight

Chalk and blackboards will not be
To this door there is no key
From this life they can not flee
And these children are not free

Could we simply light a candle
Could we give them half a chance
Could we teach them how to read
Could we teach them how to dance

Or will a war consume them
Their body and their soul
Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole

Back into the darkness
From which there is no flight
Back into the darkness
Into which there shines no light

Henry M Bechtold

This poem was written by Henry M Bechtold in 2009, when he was in Vietnam. He had always enjoyed his trips to Vietnam, so much that he even describes it as his mistress. He first visited Vietnam in 1967 and again in 1969, 2003,2006 and 2009.However, there were times when what he saw in Vietnam breaks his heart. Initially, he was planning to write on the treatment suffered by the girls working in the park. However, he then saw a picture of a young boy with a helmet and an automatic rifle while watching the news in his hotel room. Thus, he got the inspiration for this poem, letting his emotions flow.