Poem: Little Alfonso by Ian H.
‘Alfonso!’
I heard her call from the doorway
Before she ran frantic from her home
She knew her son shouldn't be in the street alone
‘First time’, she says, he wondered out’.
Away from her eyes
Into the market place she goes
Desperately she yells out his name
His disappearance drives her insane
If she doesn’t find him soon
She will have to take the blame
All this time Alfonso was in the backyard
The boy play'n his favorite game
Camouflaged amongst the bushes
From his imaginary enemy
Still and patient-not a sound
He’s buried himself underground
A pile of dried Rushes and Reeds
He wants to call out to his mother’s needs
But he has his platoon to think about
Their protection to be able to save his country
At the forefront of his mind
To his mother he has to be ‘cruel to be kind’.
As time goes on…
He doesn’t realize his mother’s gone
Until it’s late in the day
He panics-he realizes now
That he’s a home a lone
Where is she?
What shall I do?
He thinks-he wonders
Patiently he sits inside the lounge and thinks
The Police turn up in their car-he sees his mother!
Ecstatic and happy
His mother takes him in her arms
A thousand questions-no time to answer
There is True Love in the air
And the platoon is safely back in their barracks