A playground stands, empty, mute,
A silent witness, a mournful lute.
Where laughter once skipped on the wind,
Now shadows gather, memories pinned.
A swing creaks, unanswered, bare,
Echoes linger in the brittle air.
Children, whose dreams should chase the sun,
Find their stories halted, undone.
Lost in halls that promise care,
Yet shrouded in darkness, stripped and bare.
Feet that once danced on life’s bright seam,
Now vanish into an unending grim dream.
They move in files, unseen, unheard,
Shuffled, silenced, voices blurred.
A shuffle through papers, cold, confined,
A number, a name, now hard to find.
Yet beyond the ink, a heartbeat strains,
Calling, throbbing, bound in chains.
In rooms where secrets suffocate,
And bureaucracy seals one’s fate.
Eyes, once wide with innocent glee,
Are met with indifferences’ decree.
They turn, they fade, become the mist,
A listless note on a roll-call list.
We read reports, we see the lines,
But who will speak for the broken signs.
What price a life, a soul so dear,
Yet wrapped in silence, bound by fear.
As scandals crackle on the page,
A nation’s conscience smoulders, rage.
But anger, fleeting, turns to sleep,
While parents’ hearts continue to weep.
Where was the hand that should have held,
Where was the voice that should have yelled.
Children slip beneath the glass,
Reflecting us, as we let them pass.
Ghostly laughter, distant, wan,
Haunts the twilight, pale and drawn.
A whisper here, a shadow there,
Hints of lives lost to despair.
Their voices call, soft and low,
Carried by winds that forever know.
So, look deep into that mirrored pane,
And witness now the silent shame.
What is lost, and what remains,
When children are bound by chains.
We knew, we turned, we looked away,
And let them vanish, day by day.
Yet echoes, they return, they wail,
A haunting tale of sorrow’s trail.
For every child a shadow cast,
A ghost, a scar, a question asked.
Oh Ireland, listen, rise and see,
The light of these missing children must never cease to be.
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