The Lost Boy

The Lost Boy

A little boy with short-cropped hair and broken glasses

Sits alone on a mound.

It’s cold and it’s dark

and he is lost

 

He has seen them come with torch lights and sticks

They stomp in the water and prod at the coarse-lobed fronds of the bracken.

They tread through thickets of thorns and

It’s boggy underfoot.

But these moors jealously cling to their dark secret.

 

The little boy sits up

And tries to call to the men with the torch lights as,

One by one, they find his new friends.

His voice carries but then is swallowed up by the wild undulations of the hills

And the throaty gusts of the wind.

 

They’d been playing on these hills,

Skimming stones on the water,

Keeping each other company and waiting to be found.

Always, waiting to be found.

 

He feels his mother’s sadness,

He misses his brothers and sisters.

The street where he used to live has gone silent

As parents usher their children indoors with protective hands

On little shoulders

And they linger a little longer at their bedroom doors after tucking them in for the night.

 

The little boy is cold and he’s alone and he won’t be tucked up in bed for the night

For he’s up in the moors where the winds howl his name

And the rain echoes his mother’s tears.

 

He is lost but we must not forget his name:

It’s Keith

Keith Bennet!

A little boy with short-cropped hair and broken glasses.