Patrick W Kavanagh

I Left Them In Your Care

I left them in your care:
The children of the forests,
the children of the rivers,
and the children of the air.

You were my brightest children.
You measured time.
You wrote the greatest stories, and you sang the sweetest songs
How could the world of which we dreamed have gone so wrong?

You call me ‘Mother,’ or you call me ‘Father,’ begging me to save your dreams.
But I created you to be my hands, to be my mind.
I sent you out into an almost perfect world,
To make a greater goodness from the goodness that you find.

But now the world I gave you burns, and all the cooling waters stink of oil.
The worst have risen to the top like scum; each generation grows more vile.
The time has come to clear the temples of the greedy and the base.
The time has come to rise and make this world a better place.

Patrick W Kavanagh
21/01/2026
Image by Pixabay