Ayiti

This poem was written by my sister, Jessica during and after her trip to Haiti this summer.  "Ayiti" is Creole for "Haiti" and "Jezi" is Creole for Jesus.  She'll guest-write a longer prose post later about her experiences, but this was so beautiful I wanted to share it with you.

Ayiti

“When will it end?” the old woman says,

with the weight of water                  

on her back.               

“Jezi, let it end!” begs the mother ahead

with a child on her hip and a

child by the hand.

“When will it start?” says the girl to

the boy as they sit in the

wind in the tents.

And the deep lines of the old woman’s

face, the weary lines and the weary

eyes in the dark face

tell a tale of hunger and thirst

of dust and dirt,        

of pain and poverty in a world without grace.

The mother’s burdens and stoop

of her shoulders and the droop

in her eyes tells of a ceaseless task

and a hopeless future.

But the girl, with head on knees,

dirty hands and bare feet,

waits and wonders when the world for her             

will begin, when it will reveal its treasures.

And the land with bitterness

laughs at her thought

and sighs—and remembers when it

cracked, shook, tumbled their homes

like blocks,                             

crushed their bodies like twigs.