A poem by Colin Greer, President of the New World Foundation. He has published several social science books as well as numerous books of poetry. He was a founding editor of Social Policy Magazine and Change Magazine, and wrote a column for Parade Magazine for almost 20 years. He wrote this poem in response to the myriad, often silenced, crisis affecting children in the US and around the world.
If my soul is stone / then all this anxiety / is glacial till / moving across my body. / Rough edges are dulled
by the constant rubbing / of worry, working away, / chipping and fracking ...