Darfur Poem

for Simon Deng

 

 

The numbers numb.

 

The brain sloughs them off

 

they are slag, detritus.

 

All the tricks of conjure gone,

 

the old scabbed-over heart

 

no longer turns, hearing them,

 

the numbers, they numb

 

they creak by the soul

 

too old, you know,  too worked-over;

 

too many shards, too many piercings

 

too many scars on too many layers

 

 

 

until comes the tale of Simon

 

slave not of yore, Simon the slave

 

of right now, Simon the slave of Sudan,

 

who suddenly confronts the heart’s emptiness

 

with his unbearable innocence, the terrible

 

innocent suffering of his enslaved young hands

 

and his beaten back, the tableau of  horror

 

his shining eyes have been forced to witness.

 

 

So all at once

 

a sea-change, a twist, a clenching rage,

 

a thousand questions, one response:

 

O, lost child, how do you remain

 

in a world that could do this?

 

Found child, what can be done to

 

stop the runaway death train?

 

Simon, slave, where can there be

 

balm that soothes limb stumps

 

or atonement for the pain?

 

 

Heroic man, one of millions,

 

you cry out to me and I hear you.

 

Here at last, I raise my voice.

 

 

                                            ---Judith R. Robinson

 

Judith R. Robinson is an editor, teacher, fiction writer and award winning poet. She is the editor of Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts).

 

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content © - Judith R. Robinson
music : National Anthem of USA © - National Anthem Project
image source -  www.survivorsunited.com/ sudan_photos.html