O keepers of Tomorrow: A poem on stolen futures, the hypocrisy of power, and the courage to question by David Yambio

Oh keepers of tomorrow,

who appoints you guardians of a sunrise your eyes may never behold?

Before a child learns to say tomorrow, you have already mortgaged her years. Before the seed has tasted rain, you have auctioned the shade of its tree. And with the tenderness of creditors, you preach patience.

You tell us to study. So we study your books, your laws, your magnificent institutions, and discover our unborn years entered among your possessions.

When our questions are raised, you speak of rebellion, vandalism and savagery. And when we refuse to lower our heads, you summon the guardians of peace, those remarkable men who arrive armed to defend tranquillity.

You wage your wars in the name of our security,

yet what remarkable peace you offer us.

And the elders whisper: 

Be patient. Do not disturb the order of things.

O fathers, what order? The order that asks the young to love their countries but gives them no room in which to live?

Behold! In the garden Europe, the schools question their keepers.

 And behold! Beneath a thousand other skies, the young summon their own keepers to answer.

For proper education and dignified work, and peace, against corruption, war, and the sale of our earth, for freedoms rationed.

In Africa, the children of independence ask the fathers of the nation:

If you have liberated our countries, why do you still keep its keys, and from whom must we now liberate our futures?

O children of tomorrow, tell the keepers: The world belongs to the living, and its future to those who must live in it.

O children of tomorrow, when they ask you to wait your turn, ask them one last question:

If tomorrow belongs to us,
why are you still governing it
as though we are not yet born?