The Stolen Orange Coat

A little girl once stole an orange coat

Poverty breaks every oath

Little girl full of want

Harassed by other children’s taunts

Tattered clothes shamed a blossoms unblemished flower

Stealing pride and leaving her only to cower

Orange a blended hue from red and white

In hopes of brightening her life of blight

An orange orb on the horizon

A little girls color of hope with each suns rising

Orange was the color of her badge of hope

the hope she saw in the stolen coat

Hope to shed poverty’s discriminating disguise

Perhaps the stolen coat would illuminate her treasures inside

A child’s dreams believed to be sewn into bright colored seams

And not in her soul where the brightest of color beams

She soon grew out of the stolen orange coat

as I read in her story of this she later wrote

She committed her adult life to breaking the stigmas of the poor

making sure no child believes their gifts are found in anything they wore

She helps them uncover their talents and beauty inside

For each and every child it is where it resides

Reminding them there’s nothing to wear or steal

to break the grips of poverty and all the stigma it reels

She battled years of poverty’s rampant wars

For a time believing her success was in the clothes she wore

In later years as she recalled and embraced her battle scars

She unveiled her secret to winning the wars

It was her unbridled hope for a life without shame

That empowered her to break poverty’s chains

She regrets until today the stolen orange coat

But never the color of orange

her badge of color

her hope