Flourishing,
like a sapling, green
and tender
and full of life, sprouts
a young child,
pure and innocent,
in a world strewn
with seeds of vice
and corruption;
Only to be choked
by hateful weeds,
only to wither
a rotting corpse
which crumbles
to dust.
Tan Pratonix
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fate-of-a-child/