Yesterday's Child

Her shadows' printed on the wall at Aushwitz and at Buchenwald She stares out of the Holocaust with vacant eyes, forever lost She's traveling the "Trail of Tears" She falls behind but no one hears In Vietnam a rain falls down in Agent Orange we watch her drown her hands are reaching out of time but no one pays her any mind. The boots keep marching o'er the world She's someone's child, a little girl orphaned in a genocide In Africa by hate and pride She sifts the garbage stack by stack her baby brother on her back to find a rotted scrap to eat We send a dollar, feel complete Her eyes are black or brown or blue The tears she cries don't have a hue Her molecules obliterated at Nagasaki so ill fated They rained back down in radiation across the earth on every nation Her flesh on fire with pain and grief She ran to rivers for relief In Baghdad or in Mexico She's there but you don't have to know She sleeps with children on the floor in a broken building's door She's bought and sold a pound of flesh The story's old, the pain is fresh But yesterday's child will be back tomorrow She'll put down her grief, her pain and her sorrow She'll dress up her dollies and play all day long She'll sing in the morning the earth's brand new song It won't come to mind what has happened before She knows even now as she heads for the door She turns back to tell you the path may be narrow but God even cares for the death of a sparrow Take her hand, go on with her She's wearing a smile There's a place in Tomorrow for Yesterday's Child...