Mid-1960s, after B-School graduation,
Most classmates went to work for corporations.
Alone I went to study population,
By traveling in India — and other nations.
Back then there were new methods contraceptive,
The IUD, the pill, vasectomy.
Were worldwide family sizes just elective?
Or were they due to poor technology?
I met with Peace Corps volunteers in villages,
I learned it likely that children would expire.
That mothers could select their family sizes,
And have the number births that they desire.
Most Asians wanted many children born,
In Africa the birth rate was insane,
In Americas large families were the norm.
Children were a pleasure, not a bane.
This poem comes fifty-nine years later.
In India, where I studied the span,
The population’s grown to three times greater.
It’s five times more in lands Black African.
I knew by high school we would have more people.
Not imagining that their number would quadruple.