Offering Up the Children

Offering Up the Children

by SMSmith – 1987

Once
Laid upon the altar of the world
The innocent child of the Hinnom wild
Killed amidst the groves.[1]

Now
Laid upon the altar of the world
The neglected child in pursuits reviled
For things laid up in store.
The ciphered child in perversities defiled
By addicts demeaning, ever demanding more.
And the embryo child in a world beguiled
By rights of all but those.

By Moloch's priests amidst pagan feasts
Laid upon the altars of the world.
In proxied price for the willful sin
Of an idolatrous kin
Who feign in sacrifice.

What of these groves and altars of the world?
And the plague-orphaned child abandoned while
We surfeit in ease
Bottom-line disease
Kill in war
Pursue self ever more.

How long, O humankind,
These groves and altars of the world?

[1] OT: Jeremiah 32:35, 19:5-6, 7:31; Isaiah 57:5