They were only babies.
Some of them young enough
To never have known
The outside world.
A place without
airstrikes and snipers.
Where a night's sleep
isn't broken by fear.
All innocence left behind
as they walked the road from Damascus.
A community of makeshift tents
offered a temporary reprieve.
The first sanctuary
their short lives had ever known.
Only they weren't safe.
Their presence unsettled the neighbours.
Mired by indifference,
beleaguered by war.
I faced the children of Syria
on Mothering Sunday.
But I saw no flowers.
Or chocolates.
Just unaddressed cards.
These were no longer babies.
