Be the Cause

Leogane

I smile knowingly at her & ask her how old she is – 20, she says. Her infant struggles in the crevasse of her arms. Eli & I, our eyes collectively survey her innocence, her willowy brown skin – there is nothing 20 about her. I gather her newborn into my arms, as she grasps on to the box of donations handed to her.

As boxes are removed from under the tarp & into the arms of these young & eager mothers, we’re careful to explain its contents – the Kotex & toothpaste is for their own use & not for the children; the Pedialite & soap is for their babies; the shampoo is to keep their hair clean, and so on. We exchange a few rushed words about cleanliness & personal hygiene – as much as we could amidst the chaos & disorder.

The number of pregnant women & young mothers was overwhelming – however, they were the lucky ones today. As they made their way to the head of an unruly line, we struggle to maintain the magnitude of it all. Of the hundreds of displaced people clustering about, only a handful would receive a box today, far more would be turned away.

This is Leogane – the epicenter of January’s hell gushing down from the skies.

Very little prepares you for the sheer desolation here. A camp leader, a middle-aged bearded man in khaki slacks and a thin white towel cooling his neck, leads us through the mud-soaked pathway. A few donated canvas tents are strewn about – the rest made unusable by the ever-present rain & subsequent flooding.

Most shelters are 8×8 handcrafted & sewn together using dried palm fronds. The floors are patchy dirt & remnants of last night’s rainfall. Through an opening slit in the cracked leaves, we witness a makeshift ‘bed’ – course 6-inch concrete blocks covered by insects & soiled patchwork cloth. Children sleep here; elderly women find their shade here.

In the distance, a wide-eyed 12-year old & her sibling kneel before a clearing. They hastily pull weeds & clear rubble using a miniature utility knife. They are quick to build their shelter as a rain cloud looms in the distance.

We make our way back to the empty truck.  How do I shoulder my backpack & climb in – with that longing to stay behind & yet the demand for onward movement?

Beyond the Mangled Barbed Wire

Will be back soon….to give voice to their visions and narrative. Together we can make sound for those who are often muted in this world.

CAPTIVE

Man constructs the barbed wire,
And the barbed wire forms the man
Clinging to hot metal; grazing shoulders; between protruding spikes
Wistful, fatigued from de facto hallucinations
Thirsting for liquid donations
And getting rations of raised suspicions and murmurs instead
Equipped only with munitions of his ethnic claim
And remembrances of his human shield offerings
All must return home – yet home gives itself to no one.

But the defenders force step it in reverse,
Stumbling past the wire wall
Thwarted by the internment of their own minds,
Held in custody by habitual unrest
And banished by tranquilized soldiers and guardsmen
We all retreat to the picket fences of home
And dive head first into that haze of complacency

And as we sit there, suspended in dispassionate maintenance,
The war crimes of the mind suddenly give way,
To the armed insurgents attacking at you.
But you forward march anyway – in the hope of the save
Because you know their sunken eyes have at last arrested you,
Through a mass of twisted separatism
As they exhale a breath of anguish
All over your crooked prosperity

And so you blow the cycle of protests wrestling inside
And take the assault of the opposition,
Keeping your fists in check all the while –
Storing all that fury for the groundwork
And you go; you give way to all that detains you
Knowing that you are entangled in their captivity,
And that they remain caught up in yours.

Sonali Fiske

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