Eight O'clock

I saw her last year
Big round sweet look of an angel
Absently humming away,
Dusting away the morning
At the doorstep of the make-shift mud-house
Now heavily bent
Worn, by the weathering of time
Must have been eight o'clock in the morning

I saw her yesterday,
Smiling as she waved at the children
Passing by, hurrying away to school
Then as the last of them waved back
She gazed far into the distance
Hoping life would hear
The longing whose magnitude
She barely understood

I saw her today
Sniffing unconsciously
Hands clasped around her little frame
Tears rolling down her cheeks
She stood still at the doorstep that once was
Now lying like pulp to the ground
Hit by a passing storm
Must have been eight o'clock last night

I saw her later today
Forlorn and worn
Tears caked against her soft skin
Shoulders dropped against the weight
Of a childhood condemned
Not to skip hop and run up to school
But to wait upon the passer-by
Whose frown she barely understood