World Family

If the world was one big family,
then all the wealth would be available
to everyone who did their chores and
homework, all the resources shared,
and children who were naughty would be punished
so they'd learn the proper lessons,
sent to time out at the South Pole, dressed in
heavy coats but feeling it, or maybe
the Himalayan mountains where a climb
to thinner air might give them time to think
about their attitudes, or to sit beside a sand dune
in the great Sahara until apologies were made,
the promise to behave again.
There'd be no tyrants or oppressors,
not for long, at least, because the other children
let the bullies rule.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014