Darfur Prayer

 

 

She is saying a prayer

with her eyes closed

plunging deeper

into the dark beyond the darkness

that terrorizes the refugee camp

in the scorched earth

of the Sahara desert, in the lower Nile,

in this place called Darfur.

 

Back from gathering wood,

she prays to the God she still believes in,

thankful that tonight at least,

there were no sounds

of horses hooves

no janjaweed approaching.

 

Her native village destroyed,

but still she whispers, “thank you-”

she could have been

one of the many women

raped by men in uniform,

her blood dripping

on dry sand.

 

In this vast continent,

a small heart holds hope-

and across a global divide,

may this poem

be a prayer

in response...

 

and may the

blank space

be the place

where the world enters

the silence.

Not with words,

but with action.

          ----------Jean Bass

 

Jean Bass is a Certified Poetry Therapist, founder and director of the poetry practice (www.poetrypractice.com). She is the author of the forthcoming collection of poems, "I wish, I might."

 

 

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content © - Jean Bass
music: H P Chourasia (Raga - Sindhu Bhairvin) © - Gramophone Company of India
image source -  US Department of State website