THE ORIGINAL PIED PIPERS

Parents
the Original Pied Pipers
made children appear -
and when they did,
made them crawl,
dance to their tunes,
sleep to their lullabies,
read to their angry tones.
Dressed them,
poor mannequin dolls -
hair their way
clothes their way.
The mannequins
now turned
walkie-talkies at parents' bidding -
paraded in front of uncles, aunts, 'the whole school'
'participated in 'This Got Talent'
'That Got Talent'
twisting bodies and minds
forced to count and read
before they could walk and talk properly.

Complaints piled up
"your child is running down the corridor"
"your child laughs too loudly"
"your child cannot pronounce properly"
"your child is a dunce"

And Pied Piper parents
hold all the answers -
grades, grades, grades
concentrate, study -
"my child is a genius!"
"my child is an engineer!"
"my child has a job!"
"my child is getting married!"

Somewhere in the midst of it all -
So silently, no one noticed
the mountain had slid open
and both childhood and children
had disappeared.