by Garry Shooks (guest author) on 3 June, 2011
Garry Shooks shares his poem reflecting on life in Children’s Homes.
Little eyes weep as they sleep
Morning to night we are in fright
Our little eyes weep for the sound of a loving heart;
Lost in our world of diminishing veils of mist of who we are,
Number 3, I am and as such I respond to the call of three,
The tears came easy at first but they dried up when standing in the midnight cold shivering,
Told you once too often I was told not to cry,
Naked in the frosty night I dare not cry as the bashing I just got has left me battered and bruised,
I wish I could cry as I stand and shiver in the night time cold
A life time of bitter memories has left me scared in places only I know,
The years of pain within has made me old, years have come and gone I wish I could be reborn to start again without the pain.
My parent was the states who were ashamed of us and kept us from prying eyes, uneducated and no love I was sent into the world at 16 with a suitcase of cloths and not told to make a start.
Refugee in the lucky country where do you start, my life skills were how to fight,
I’ve survived to this day because I have a tough heart born of Anzac blood I’ve refused to lay down no matter what,
My body is torn and battered from life’s fight that it wants to lay down and rest and have a new start.
Anzacs children we are and we have spent a life time looking for the lucky country to call home, I’m still a refugee in the lucky country so where do I start,
I’ve had the Prime minister Mr Rudd come to my home to say sorry from the nation for all the bad things that were done, but that does not heal a broken heart,
But with respect I had seen a man who has a caring heart.
Garry Shooks
