Children’s laughter, once heard beneath the trees,
Mother and dad relaxing in the old porch swing,
Enjoying the cool evening breeze.

Neighbors out for an evening walk,
Would stop by and sit on the porch steps,
Just to have a long friendly talk.

Before the evening was through,
There would be some homemade ice cream,
And maybe some homemade cookies, too.

The neighbors finally drift along home,
The children all tucked in their bed,
Mother and dad left to swing all alone.

Ah, for those happy days of yesteryear,
When your neighbors were your friends,
And you enjoyed just being here.

Today everything is quite different,
Your neighbors are all strangers,
Most of whom you’ve never met.

’Tis dusk, and there are no pedestrians,
Only the autos go speeding by,
And one after another, those sirens.

Is it another gang beating,
A horrible traffic accident,
Or another drive-by shooting?

The criminals have taken over the streets,
Preying on the weak and unsuspecting,
Laughing at the policeman on his beat.

The children are all inside now,
Restless, with nothing to do
But peep through the bars on the window.

Is this really America I see,
Peeping through the bars at me,
Land of the brave, home of the free.

John Watson

****************************

Just a little background information about this poem to give you an
insight to its relevance to todays events.     

I live just a 30 minute drive south of Ft Worth, TX and still
considered a part of the Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex.  We have had a lot
of drive-by shootings by various gang members and then about 5 years ago
a little girl in Dallas was celebrating her fifth birthday with a
birthday party in her front yard.  She and some of her friends were
eating cake and ice cream on the front porch of the house when two car
loads of teenagers stopped about a block away and got out of the cars
and got into an argument.    

One of the teens pulled out a gun and started shooting.  One of the
stray bullets hit the little girl on the porch and killed her.  After
hearing  this story on the news and driving through several neighborhood
in Dallas and Ft Worth and seeing all the houses with bars on the
windows is when I wrote this poem.        

Just thought you might like to know a little of
the background for    this poem.