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Archive for January, 2010

Requiem for Haiti – A Prelude

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Requiem for Haiti – A Prelude

The skin of my brothers burn,
blistering hissing spitting
bursting a final gasp of air
a death rattle a crack of sap.

My sister burns into a blackened
corpse, her green body curling
into a carbon galaxy shimmering
opaque starless and alone.

A tree speaks differently than a man,
the wind the rustle the leaves are
thoughts and whispers and memories.

A broken thorn pleads;
‘Why do you cut?’
‘Why do you smash us?’
‘Have you no pity in you?’

Under a cold gray sky my Mother weeps
her muddy shoulders tremble, pockmarked
by greed, poverty and an absent god.

Excerpt from ‘Wasteland: Charcoal Production in Haiti’, written two days before the earthquake.

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