On Ethiopia and Lamentations 4

If
desert should swallow
Ohio,
the corn belt, Kansas,
California of myths
and dreams,
Congress beg, trembling,
for Cuba to defend
against invading Canadian
hordes,

If
wind should whistle
and fire blaze
through tinder-dry, gutted
ruins,
diamonds and gold
lay scattered,
unheeded,
in the streets,

If
children should cry
from hunger and thirst,
ignored,
until their strength
fails,
and mothers
who once would have given
their last bite of bread
for their children
now boil them
to eat,

would you,
my mother, boil your child
to feed your stomach,
and she,
would she kill
not to
die,

and would you,
beloved, who
pulled me from
darkness, confusion, and
bitter anger,
taught me
to love again
when I had
forgotten how,
starve,
and she who cannot forget
you
turn her back,
walk away,

and would even you,
Lord,
the sure ground
on which I stand,
end of all hope, all years
wait vainly
while she whom you called
from blindness to
sight, from death
into life,
passes by,
unheeding,

or would she grope
to find you amid the ruins
and cry out,
"Why?! Lord, have you who
sees each sparrow
fall
and names each speck of dust
upon the ground
grown deaf and
blind?
Answer me!,"

or
might she,
seeing in mind's eye the place
and time of your
death,
your bloody sweat,
your cry to the Father,
"Let this pass!,"
and then
your last, horrible lesson
on how to
obey,
say with you,
"Not my will, Father,
but yours be
done."

Last modified on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 8:40 AM PDT.