Poetry - In memory of those killed by abortion

Attached are a selection of poems written by various people re the tradegy of abortion.

It also has Spike Milligan's Unto Us which he read on RTE'S Late Late Show some years before his death.

Ballad of the unborn

My shining feet will never run
On early morning lawn;
My feet were crushed before they had
A chance to greet the dawn

My fingers will never stretch
To touch the winning tape;
My race was done before I learned
The smallest steps to take

My growing height will never be
Recorded on a wall;
My growth was stopped when I was still
Unseen and very small

My lips and tongue will never taste
The good fruits of the earth;
For I myself was judged to be
A fruit of little worth

My eyes will never scan the sky
For my high-flying kite;
For when still blind, destroyed were they
In the black womb of the night

I'll never stand upon a hill
Spring winds in my hair;
Aborted winds of thought closed in
On motherhood's despair

I'll never walk the shores of life
Or know the tides of time;
For I was coming but unloved,
And that my only crime

Nameless am I, a grain of sand
One of the countless dead,
But the deed that make me ashen grey
Floats on seas of red

Fay Clayton, November 8th 1972

A young life is gone

Mammy keep me safe, Mammy keep me warm,
And with all your love, help me to form.
I'm six weeks today and a birthday gift to me,
Is a pair of bright blue eyes so that one day I might see.
I've already got my arms, I have a podgy little nose,
And at the end of my feet are funny little things called toes.

I'm looking forward now to life; ice-cream, snails,
Teddy bears and long fairy tales.
Where are you going I wonder today? In a bus, in a car, far far away.
Why are you lying down being pushed on four wheels?
This doesn't happen - how funny it feels.

Banging through doors - all people in green,
If they hurt you Mammy; Mammy just scream.
Don't go asleep Mammy, don't leave me alone.
Mammy I'm scared, I want to go home.
Mammy what's happening, I'm starting to cry.
Run quick Mammy, I don't want to die.

They're killing me Mammy, they're pulling me apart.
My legs, my arms, they're cutting my heart.
Goodbye Mammy; Mammy, Mammy Goodbye.
Thanks for trying, but I won't see the sky.
I won't the see birds or the grass or the trees,
I won't sing sweet songs or feel a strange breeze.

I love you, dear Mammy, I really, really do

And I hope dear Mammy, that you loved me too.

Dear Mandy 

Lord, I still find the need to cry
Because my little girl had to die
But Lord I know when you
came I had to give her a name 

Dear Mandy 15 years ago
How I do not know
I denied you life
Because I wasn't a wife
You may never see
What this did to me
It was at high cost
For I also lost
The right to have another
Never to be a mother

You were my only one
Mandy, we could have had so much fun
The times we would have shared
For you I would have cared
I know you are in heaven above
And through my Father's love
I have been forgiven now
But I know not how
His love can be that wide
Now I have nothing to hide

God is looking after you
Until the day we two
Can be together once again
And be really free from pain
Mandy I ask you to forgive
Your mother
But at the time I could see no
Other way out of the situation
I never knew you were a creation

Now it is a different story
God has given me the glory
To go and tell one and all
How I was such a fool
If only I had known there was a life inside
So many tears I needn't have cried

Prayer

Loving God, creator of all human life, we adore You and worship You

You create all human beings in your image

May we, Your people, dedicate ourselves to defending the preborn and all those threatened by the culture of death

We ask You to touch the hearts of all mothers considering abortion, the abortionists, and those who support killing preborn babies.

Day of our age

One year ago, a child was never born. It's life
was terminated before it ever reached the light of day.
The story was kept and never told, until one day of the
fall in 1994. The story was told, and eyes were darkened
by the sins of the father, and the cruelty and sadness of
the mother, the mother of the unborn. The
mother told the tale to the Companion, and the Companion swore loyalty and trust.

One year-day it now is, and will come to pass,
and these are the scenes in this age: The father of the
unborn, not knowing, not aware of this day to pass.
The mother of the unborn, aware of this day, but not
willing to accept the weight of the past.

But on this day, one pair of eyes stare at the sky,
and wonder about the fate of the mortals.
One pair of eyes
are wet from tears. One says a silent prayer to the soul of
the unborn, as the tears fall, and the sky turns gray as
steel, and open it's gates and cries with me.

The Companion cries where no one else does, since I remember the tears of
the mother, the harshness of the father, and the unopened
eyes of the unborn child, to have been one year old on this day,
if time had come to pass.

Say a prayer to the unborn this day, as no one else will remember.

Rasmus Hansson, 7th April, 1995

In the life of a child 

A hundred years from now,
it will not matter what
my Bank Account was,
the sort of house I lived in,
or the kind of car I drove,
but the world may be different
because I was important
in the life of a child.

Children 

How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers

Mother Teresa

Unto us 

Somewhere at sometime
They committed themselves to me
And so I was!
Tiny in shape
Lusting to live!
I hung in my pulsing cave.

Soon they knew of me
My mother - my father
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me!
I will bring you love!'

I was taken
Blind, naked, defenceless,
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
And dropped on the sterile floor
Of a foot-operated plastic waste bucket.

There was no Queen's Counsel,
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled,
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With two tickets to see Danny La Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was...

by Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan, actor and comic