In Jerusalem a seventeen-year-old girl,
an Israeli, goes to the store to buy bread.
There she encounters an eighteen-year-old girl,
Palestinian...a living bomb...soon both are dead.
These teenage girls lived but four miles apart,
one in modern housing, one in a refugee camp,
one wanting peace, one with hatred in her heart.
In this world of darkness, can no one light a lamp?
In Shreveport a nineteen-year-old white girl
is driving home from shopping at the mall.
She stops at an intersection. Suddenly her world
comes to a violent end. It makes no sense at all.
Two black teens at the corner convenience store
got into a fight...they were members of rival gangs.
It seems fights can’t be settled without guns anymore.
Her world ended with that bang...his with a jail cell’s clang.
These two teenagers lived but four miles apart,
she in an upscale subdivision, he in “depressed housing”.
She a college freshman, he a dropout – angry at heart.
Their tragedy passed unnoticed, without alarm arousing.
Four more mothers now will endure a lifetime of grief.
Conflicts unresolved for generations...it’s beyond belief.
From all this violence, can there never be any relief?
It takes from the world peace and security like a sneak thief...
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