Madonna Of The Streets

For many years, she walked the streets and her body she sold. 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)