Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop
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Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop
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Song For Hadida
Photo after photo of the camps of Darfur
Faces full of sorrow, reflecting our shame
Hadida, Hadida, why did I learn your name?
Hadida, Hadida, what can I do?
Hadida, Hadida, what evils haunt you?
Dust and wind and relentless sun
little clean water, faces full of pain
Eyes of Hadida, why are you watching me again?
Hadida, Hadida, what do you want me to do?
Hadida, Hadida, did you escape the rape?
There's a frail eight month old to weak to sit
lying listlessly in his mother's thin arms
Hadida, Hadida, how can I keep you from harm?
Hadida, Hadida, what do you want me to do?
Hadida, Hadida, are you safe from the guns?
I've wept for your life and for my soul
I've sent money and written your song
Hadida, Hadida, why does it still feel wrong?
Hadida, Hadida, what more can I do?
Hadida, Hadida, are you still alive?
Hadida, Hadida, what more can I do?
Hadida, Hadida, what more can I do?
Hadida, Hadida, should I come for you?
Hadida, Hadida, should I come for you?
August 28, 2004 ~JT
Panoramic View of Darfur Refugee Camp
In my innocence, "panoramic" meant grand and beautiful,
scenic and awe-inspiring, breath-taking and majestic.
Surely a panoramic view of genocide and rape
of the murder, hunger and cruelty of Darfur can be none of these things.
But I look anyway.
It is, after all, only the aftermath of the unspeakable
it is dirt, dust, desolation and despair.
Small, make-shift shelters barely offering protection from the sun
let alone from those who want to rape and degrade
before they annihilate and eradicate.
Grand? yes. The numbers killed reaching 191,000 today
Beautiful? incredibly so. What else can you see in the face of beautiful 6 year old Hadida?
Scenic? oh yes, only scenes too powerful and haunting to bear.
Awe-inspiring? The Darfurians fight for survival, yes.
Breath-taking? If that the realization of the "ethnic cleansing"
stopped my breath, then, yes.
Majestic? Before the "burning of villages, bombing of water sources, destruction of farms", yes.
Who sits in those meager huts in the refugee camps?
It could be said, "the lucky ones"
Those who might survive, whose children,
malnourished and terrorized, might recovered - someday.
(Let's not think about what recovery means to these unwilling witnesses)
If anyone, everyone who will not tolerate this cruelty
demands that it stop. Demands that their government
bring safety, bring food, bring water, bring compassion,
now. If we give of our own attention, time and resources
now. Maybe recovery . . . of a kind will come. But will we recover
from our complicity of silence? From being too late for the 191,000?
August 24, 2004 ~JT
If you were in reach I would nurse you, child
And make a soft bed for your momma
If I were a trigger-happy president
I'd postpone my hunt for Osama
Sleep, baby, sleep
Under the Darfur moon
Before the rains come and erase you
Someone should be there soon
Your picture's right there for the world to see
Millions of people look away
We shuffle our feet and clear our throats
What can one person do anyway?
Sleep, baby, sleep
Under the Darfur moon
Before the rains come and erase you
Someone should be there soon
Someone should be there soon
If you had white skin or some oil fields
Would it have gone this far?
Here's my bewildered belated gift
Money, prayers and a song on this guitar
Sleep, baby, sleep
Under the Darfur moon
Before the rains come and erase you
Someone should be there soon
Someone should be there soon
Someone should be there soon
Sleep, baby, sleep
Under the Darfur moon
Before the rains come and erase you
Someone should be there soon
Someone should be there soon
Someone should be there
© 08/04/04 by Julia Bloom. Published with permission from the author.
cabinoflove.com/darfur_moon.htm
My son is fighting in Iraq
why even he's not sure
tonight I saw an African child
lying on her desert floor
nothing underneath her
that may have helped keep her alive
nothing to set their hearts ablaze
what they all drink to survive
Too much dollars and not enough sense
on the day I went to war
took a razor for the day I needed it
and a crucifix from my drawer
somehow managed to stay alive
and to forget I was a kid
other than that I can't really say
what earthly good it did
will Darfur invade my dreams
the way Kigali made it through
with eyes of little children
staring back at you
As a soldier you're prepared to die
you clear it with your head
I just got news from Baghdad
that my only boy is dead
he sent me the picture of that girl
his last letter from God knows where
said he would have proudly died for her
if they'd only sent him there
but we don't fight for her
not sure we ever will
my boy died so oil men
could sit around and swill
Sudan sits like a drunken man
sleeping at the bar
call a taxi to get him home
or let him sleep in his car
will Darfur invade my dreams
the way Kigali made it through
with eyes of little children
staring back at you
copyright ©2004 by Tom Flannery, 07/26/2004. Published with permission from the author.
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