A Christmas Message on behalf of millions of children. "Begging for a Seat in School"

A Christmas Message on behalf of millions of children 

Begging for a Seat in School

Dr Abe V Rotor

A reproduction of a painting by Nikolay Petrovich Bogdalov-Belsky 

(1868–1945), a Russian painter.

A disturbing scene to Maslow -

could he have been wrong?

What is self-actualization

to the striving throng?

What's good is the Bastille trilogy -

pillars of modern society:

equality, fraternity,

liberty - sans dignity?

Motherhood words may come easy;

they cannot be mistaken,

for the lips that speak of promise

are easily forgotten.

And the world goes on as it seems;

a beggar boy, its conscience:

lost youth, lost hope, lost future

in the midst of affluence.

The door is jarred to full view

and knocking wouldn't lend an ear;

indifference makes man blind

or takes him to the rear.

He who feels for the needy

with nothing to give is a fool,

in a world deaf to a poor boy

begging for a seat in school. ~

NOTE: A student of mine from Iran at the UST Graduate School left this reproduction as a souvenir. The painting apparently belongs to post classicism at the dawn of realism.