A child can soften a hardened heart
18 November 2015
RAYMOND SIGIMET
I had once read of a tale
In a crowded saloon of burly males
Who tough it out every day in a mine
Who know not women nor child, but grime
The saloon was full to the brim
Most of them could do with a trim
And against the din for the night was wild
A baby’s cry penetrated the hall
The coarse laughter and cursing evaporated
All heads turned to this novel racket
A sound forlorn and alien to these beasts
A baby crying on her mother’s breast
A patron’s voice raised to quiet the child
And he was duly scolded and chided
By the others to let the cry be
A reminder of their childhood memory
And in the stillness of this hardened outpost
A sniffle and sob broke the repose
A burly tattooed miner let down his tears
For he had not heard this noise for years
Again, I heard of this tale from families
Of a man in the local penitentiary
For drinking and fighting and all these
He gets locked up now and then for ages
He likes to drink and fight and rob
He has his boys who are the mob
And one time, unluckily, he got nabbed
Got thrown in prison and jailed
Behind the high walls and bars
And the cold nights, the hunger and loneliness
He thought of his wife and child
Left husbandless and fatherless in the free world
For he realised what good it is
For the prestige of crime and all there is
To let his wife sleep alone
And him to his child, unknown
He removed this veil of thuggery
And walked on a journey to recovery
To cherish what’s important in life
A changed man with his child and wife
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