This lament was composed by Haven Pastor Leah Martens as part of an exploration of lament that the Haven community has engaged in throughout the month of July 2020. Visit our YouTube channel to view three services held this month that consider the importance of lament in seasons of sustained crisis, and begin to practice it together.
Silence settles on the desolate landscape that was once a playground.
Fences and gates keep children and their grownups away.
Swings sit still, only rustled by the breath of breeze.
And structures meant to be climbed simply stand somberly:
Empty monuments to the mundane magic of play.
But what of the miniature hands and feet that used to scamper and climb here?
What of the myriad voices that had once rung out in cheerful cacophony?
“A child’s work is play” the important grownups have told every concerned parent.
But what kind of work is happening in a world where children cannot play?
What is the cost of a childhood confined?
Where lies the loss of laughter and love?
How can a tablet of metal and glass
Replace the hand of a best friend, clasped tight?
“This is the way to keep them safe”, we rightly say.
But what is safe about suffocation?
What is safe about social deprivation?
What is safe in homes that are not sanctuaries,
but dens of derision, violence, mediation?
“Kids are resilient” the important grownups say,
But none who speak these words have nurtured kids through this.
None have been the only arms that can hug a haunted child.
None have found themselves cast in a one-person show overnight,
Without rehearsal, now playing the part of parent, teacher, best friend, and therapist, too.
None have born witness to the collective trauma of a generation
Driven immediately into the digital arms they were only months ago being warned against.
None have seen a young population transition their work-play
Into texts and posts and online games and come out resiliently on the other side;
Still able to run and climb and read and carry on a coherent conversation.
None have seen the structures that once shaped a family’s life fall apart
And been left puzzling with the pieces that no longer fit together.
Kids may be resilient but what about those they rely on?
Are we resilient enough for this?
And what of the learning lost:
Classroom learning, choir room learning, cafeteria learning?
How will the chasms be closed?
Or will this simply remain a continual casualty;
The curse of the Covid Kids?
Oh my dear children, whom I nurtured in my very body,
How I wish I could draw you back into myself,
Keeping you close and held in the shelter of my being
As you await your emergence.
How I wish I could expand to be enough for you to inhabit
In a way that would comfort and care for you as you develop and grow.
But stretch as I might, you are beyond me.
My womb is not wide enough,
My frame is not strong enough,
My breasts are not full enough
To nourish you with all that you now need.
So I must simply sit here with you
In all the questions that can’t be answered
And all the fears that might be realized.
I will sit with you and speak
Of online games and butterflies.
And I will hold you here, both as you cry and as you sing.
I will accompany you as my Divine Parent accompanies me.
Praying that Spirit breathes on you in the place that still lives free:
That wild imagination that is yet untamed and sweet.
Perhaps this is the hope of a child’s resiliency:
The capacity to dream of a world that might yet someday be.