A PRAYER/PLEDGE OF RESPONSIBLITY FOR CHILDREN

We pray {accept responsibility} for children
who sneak popsiclesbefore supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray {accept responsibility}for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes,"
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never fo to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray {accept responsibility}for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistsfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray {accept responsibility} for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe balnket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray {accept responsibility}for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anyone,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray {accept responsibility}for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother...and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

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