“Storytellers” Poetry Contest Runner-Up: We the Children

by Kelly Meagher

“Storytellers” Poetry Contest Runner-Up:

WE THE CHILDREN

When we were children, we climbed heaps of trash to find treasures to bring home-

A broken tin kettle, a cup, a bowl.

We took our hard-earned riches and built ourselves a world.

Stones stacked like a box to make our own stove, and a bent over tree became our home.

The boys took their guns in search of dinner, and I-

I boiled water with fire that burned my fingertips.

It was that day that I learned why birds must be plucked before they meet their fate.

Feathers smell putrid when they bake.

We played for hours in our made up and real world.

Lighting fires.

Shooting birds.

And catching lizards as they emerged.

But then the grown-ups came-

Enraged that we’d taken their space,

And they tore it all down.

Made room for their religious ways and the things they thought profound.

Religion and destruction seem eternally bound.

We the children,

We shrugged our shoulders and waited for morning,

Because reforming and restoring is what we do.

We scoured the trash dump at dawn,

And with our treasures, headed home.

Ripe to rebuild and light fires against the morning dew.

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEM:

"We The Children" is a story from my childhood that I believe holds a deeper analogy of what I hope our generation can be in the modern-day church. The story is about the summer I turned 10. My parents moved to a small village in Mexico to be missionaries, and with nothing to do, my brothers and I searched the village dump for tin pots and kettles so we could play house. We built real stoves made out of rock, filled up our tin pots with water, and lit fires. It was the most alive I had ever felt in play. My brothers even went out hunting with their bb guns to shoot birds for "dinner."

But there was a mission team staying that week, and they had planned a bonfire in our yard for later that night. One of the missionaries came and was angry we had made a mess of the yard with our rock formations, junkyard finds, and dead birds. And he tore everything down in a rage. We watched it happen dejected, but regardless, the next morning, we set out to rebuild again.

It isn't my heart to bash the church, but I love the resilience of the children in this story.  I think it hints at the remnant of people whose hearts have remained on fire, the ones who have taken risks for His kingdom, and the ones who know the true joy of living in His kingdom, and how they have held that fire in the face of a nominal and sometimes legalistic Christianity. My hope is that no matter what is torn down or unappreciated, that we will always find within ourselves the resilience to rebuild and restore what was lost and what makes us feel most alive.

KELLY MEAGHER

Currently living in Metro Detroit with her husband and three kids, Kelly Meagher is a writer, poet, and author of When He Whispers Your Name. Throughout her life, Kelly has relentlessly pursued the intersection of where God's kingdom meets the world's most broken places. In her pursuit she has found God's goodness to be an unimaginably powerful force of healing. WIth a passion to spread a new way of seeing God's goodness, Kelly writes inspirational narratives and prose to draw others into a new way of being in relationship with God and His kingdom.