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  • The City of Beggar Children
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The City of Beggar Children

Roberto Sosa

Where do the beggar children come from,
what forces multiply their rags?

Whose heart has never felt those fingers
pecked
by birds with copper beaks?

Who hasn’t stopped to see their bones
and hear their voices
pleading like humiliated bells?

Let there be no beggar children dwarfed in doorways,
chilled by cemetery mist,
pale wall of the city.

Let there be children with toys,
bread
and stars beneath their shoes.

Let them play in the school yard
and catch insects in the grass.

Let them live in their own worlds
among the beings and the things they love.


Roberto Sosa

from The Return of the River: the Selected Poems of Roberto Sosa (Willimantic CT: Curbstone Press, 2002)

translated by Jo Anne Engelbert

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holder. If you can advise us of the appropriate acknowledgement to be made please contact reception@spl.org.uk

Tags:

childhood Honduras hope poverty and social deprivation

About this poem

This poem, representing Honduras, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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Roberto Sosa1930 - 2011

Roberto Sosa was born in 1930, and began publishing in the 1960s. Poverty, inequality, oppression and struggle are significant themes of Sosa’s work. Sosa edited the magazine Presente and served as director of the University of Honduras Press. He...
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