A naked child is running 

along the path toward us, 

her arms stretched out, 

her mouth open, 

the world turned to trash 

behind her.



She is running from the smoke 

and the soldiers, from the bodies 

of her mother and little sister 

thrown down into a ditch, 

from the blown-up bamboo hut 

from the melted pots and pans. 

And she is also running from the gods 

who have changed the sky to fire 

and puddled the earth with skin and blood. 

She is running--my god--to us, 

10,000 miles away, 

reading the caption 

beneath her picture 

in a weekly magazine. 

All over the country 

we're feeling sorry for her 

and being appalled at the war 

being fought in the other world. 

She keeps on running, you know,

after the shutter of the camera 

clicks. She's running to us. 

For how can she know, 

her feet beating a path 

on another continent? 

How can she know

what we really are? 

From the distance, we look 

so terribly human.