It's been days
The searching
For this child
Twelve or thirteen
I don't watch the news
But I've heard the alerts
While flipping channels
Now it's national
Into the woods alone
Like a grim fairy tale
The deadly game of hide and seek
Gets bigger by the day
All this repetition
He was a 'boyscout'
Did a reporter
Really hate the organization so much
They held a grudge
Boy scouts are not campers
They don't carry land maps
The focus is group activity
And being a good person
Let's make something clear
If he isn't dead
Then he will be hurt
Dehydrated at the least
A boy barely has even the instinct to survive
Days without food, water, or shelter
A combination I would wish on no one
As we all come closer
To the most likely conclusion
Should we give up hope
Or abandon a lost cause
And will this publicity
Help or hurt the Boy scouts
Who can never teach a boy
To be a man
Good for him...
He survived
16 comments:
Interesting piece. I vaguely heard they found him alive? Not sure. Terrible when people go missing.
Thanks Beaman-it's just prose but I have been having a rough week. I hate not being able to write. It's not a block, just no time. When I am home I want a break. He was found-that is the difference from the original-the last two lines.
Your poem has a flow and rhythm to it. It speaks to the harsh reality of the news media. Glad they found him alive. In Oregon we experienced two untimely deaths of people lost in and on the mountains this past fall/winter. Hard to take.
Wonderful prompt idea, Chris.
Your photos are interesting and speak to the news which has been plaguing my heart recently.I'm glad you wrote about this important topic. It's an area of our society I feel can never get too much attention and I wish were so different...
Thank goodness they found him alive. The other effects are all too chilling.
Take care
Interesting take Chris. The bright blue of the boxes and then your poem captures the hysteria of the media. Not of the searchers though.
So glad he was found alive and good you wrote a poem about it...
I'm glad for those last two lines, that he was found alive in the end. Hard to imagine how that would change you, to have an experience like that, especially when so young.
The deadly game of hide and seek, that certainly is the worst kind.
I didn't realise the boy had been lost that long.
Excellent use of teh prompt.
All of you are so nice to have written back such wonderful things. I would love to send a personal message to each of you but I am at work. I really posted this becasue of my gut feeling and later wondered if it was poetic enough, but you all have made me think it was and have changed my feelings about it. If nothing else I told a story that needed to be said.
I found myself caught up in that story this last week, praying that he would be found alive and knowing as teh hours passed that it was becoming less and less likely. And then the news said he was found alive and like with your poem, after so much fear growing- line after line working towards the inevitable unhappy ending- the relief spread through me.
It was interesting to read your perspective on this national news story that so many of us thought about this last week.
thanks again
Powerful words...
I take by the previous post, not the original, yet revised?
I did admonish you in my head...not badly per se...Just as a fellow poet(and yes I do not post them all nor do I keep them all) it does "upset" me when another does not post their words..or the original idea.
Does that make sense?
Anyway! Your words that fill here are beautifully written, great rhythm and flow. Very nice!
Great use of the challenge, and the almost minute by minute updates we heard--some just fillers.
My PT is up. http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/03/poetry-thursday-12-todays-challenge-is.html
This is a powerful piece. To me it points out that the actual humanity of the boy almost gets lost in the hype about him. Very well done.
Great narrative prose poem. Glad he was found.
Wow-- an intense poem, especially the ending. I'm glad I read the comments, because when I first read it, I took your last 3 lines to mean that he survived from having to learn to be a man, which takes it in a way different direction.
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