A photograph appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1994...a malnourished dying child trying to crawl to a UN aid post a kilometer away...watched over by a vulture just waiting for the child to die... <br /> <br /> <br />Kevin Carter zoomed his camera lens, that day in’94, <br />A starving child in Sudan, was knocking at death’s door, <br />One vulture and one journalist; both mere meters away, <br />Both with different agendas; but a dying babe their prey. <br /> <br />A world stood aghast and horrified, by that photo in the Times, <br />Starvation’s morbid clock unveiled, its ticking and its chimes, <br />But two would reap the benefit of this poor child’s demise, <br />Sudan much needed food and aid… and Carter, a Pulitzer Prize. <br /> <br />We dare not stand in judgment; for we were never there; <br />Africa is an angry land; fermenting poverty and despair, <br />“Don’t touch the sick and dying” Kevin Carter had been told; <br />He abandoned that poor child, as other scenes did unfold. <br /> <br />Plagued by haunting vivid memories, of Africa’s en-rapt pain, <br />Those abandoned starving children, surely drove this man insane, <br />He observed first hand, our tragic land, we seldom comprehend; <br />Driving him, just three month hence… his tormented life to end. <br /> <br />Lord when will the suffering cease, in Africa so sublime? <br />Will ever we be a land, free of hunger, strife and crime? <br />Will the image of Kevin’s photo, open up our ailing eyes, <br />And open up our deaf ears…to our hungry children’s cries? <br />Alf Hutchison <br /> <br />MT 19: 14 But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'<br /><br />Alf Hutchison<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/africa-s-hungry-children/
