A Voice from the Camp of the Women.

Why has He who orders the stars 
and sets the moon on high 
left us here to die? 
We starve. 
Our infants have lost the will to live. 
They lie in our arms and wait. 
Beyond the camp 
and in the border crossings 
cruel predators circle or lurk. 
Ships carrying food to feed us 
are sunken in the harbor of the city 
that was once our home. 
Death for us is merciful. 
But know that in palaces across the sea 
dwell those who finance this war. 
Why are they so sleek and fat?
Why do they have large harems? 
Why are their robes are clean and white? 
How can they kneel and pray
and offer up holy words 
when their actions and their money 
cause us to suffer and starve? 
It is not just them. Our misfortune 
is spread across this entire archipelago 
but none come to help.

Yet you seek help from me. 
You ask me if your daughter is here. 
She is not. 
You can thank God for that.

Look Within.

By day, surrounded by the rolling swell, 
driven by the ceaseless wind, 
at night blanketed by the canopy of stars, 
I sought answers for the horror that I had seen. 

The stars were mute and the swells silent. 
Why should they answer?
They have not plundered and killed.
They do not destroy or discriminate.

Yet I heard this persistent voice: 
it is never in the stars 
that we are thus and thus. 
Look deeper! Look within!

Voices from the Cliffs.

I sailed near an island where sheer cliffs 
descended to greet a surging swell 
crashing against stone 
in ceaseless foam-filled turbulence.

Above the rolling thud of waves 
and roar of spreading spray 
I heard female voices singing, 
bidding me come near and listen. 

What use to close my ears? 
With one hand I held the rudder, 
with the other a sail rope, 
and as I fought to clear the cliffs 
voices in succession sung.   

A strand of glossy hair, 
fine like silk and waved in joy  
hung free from the front of my scarf. 
For that they beat me with a rod of cane 
and relished in their work. 

I had a child out of wedlock.
My lying lover disappeared.  
My villagers buried me up to my neck.
The stones were piled high 
and many hands reached down. 

Then a third, a fourth, a fifth spoke 
and innumerable voices cried out 
stories of abuse and oppression 
until the cliffs echoed with voices, 
each with a horror tale to tell. 

I wept and shouted to the sea and stone 
I know these stories are true! 
But tell me what to do! 
what to do! what to do!

Then a surging wave lifted my boat 
far from cliff and crashing wave.
I sailed then in calmer water 
but my heart beat hard
because the voices I had heard    
now lodged deep within my heart.