It was a living, she said,
but deep within her,
there was a heart of gold.
The story goes they called her
the Madonna of the streets.
If anyone needed help,
her outstretched hand was always there.
She rescued many young souls
from the streets of despair.
Her neighbours turned their nose up
at her living ways,
but took a long second look
the day the lord took her away.
A child was playing in the road,
the car they did not see,
but this woman of the night
saw what was happening there.
There was a screech of brakes,
a child screaming for his mum,
and a twisted broken body
underneath the wheels of the car.
When the crowds began to gather,
the tragedy became very clear.
The girl had been passing,
saw what was happening there,
had sacrificed her own life
for that child fair.
The neighbours,
who had shunned her,
now began to weep openly
for that loathsome girl
that lived down the street,
and whose friends had nicknamed her,
the Madonna of the streets.
Many learned a lesson
on that fateful day.
That was not to judge to harshly
those they do not really know.
(1 July 2007)