Darfur Down
The plains are quiet under the forlorn Sudan
The people wilt like flowers planted beneath the sand
From rape and murder and starvation
Of unfed mouths
Unfed hope
Love
Care
Humanity
Ravaged by the Baggara
Descendents of grand tribes
Lost
And moving
Down
Roving the sands
And hopeless sun
Stopping only to
Plant gardens
Down
Push the black seed
Down
Into the empty guts
Of Darfur
Down
Again
Darfur
Down
The hunters raid
The rapists thieve
The murderers slay
Lacerating fatality
Down
Upon the child’s teeth
Down
Upon the mother’s bones
Down
Upon the father’s strapped back
Trickling
Down
Oozing
Down
A growing lossInfection
The seeds of genocide
Blooming
Down
Flowering
Down
The zenith of rot
Rising down
Now a wailing
Weeping
Desperate
Sobbing
Fearful
Bawling
Hopeless
Howling
O! Baggara!
O! Janjaweed!
O! America!
O! World!
Tempests of butchery
And burials
Burials don’t rise
Burials don’t sprout up like flowers
Blooming to fragrant air
Burials grow
Down
Descending
Down
Into the dark
Seeking
The deep fetid dwelling
Of hopelessness
Of greed
Of starvation
Of shrieking hell
Of the decomposing stench
Heaving Heaving Heaving
Down Down Down
Swelling upon the child’s lips
Down
Across the mother’s breasts
Down
Through the father’s hands
Down
Over the nation’s love
Down
Upon the world’s hope
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
-Stop-
- Reproduced with permission