Rwanda Poem 1
(What Is Happening)
Nightmares in the day
the light is harsh
no one can count that high
no one can count that high
no one can hold that much
all those names
all those names
lost forever
to the world.
Rwanda Poem 2
(Madeline Albright)
They discuss the finer points of using the word
genocide and settle on the term “acts of genocide”
so as not to alarm Americans
that something should be done
this conveys something but does not name
what is happening
they know history is on their side
these men and women with scrubbed clean hands
and regrets later are seen as proof
you are still human
this conveys something
but does not name what is happening.
Rwanda Poem 3
(Bill Clinton)
how we miss him those eight years he was our man
we must get back the country we had before Bush
we need a man like Clinton in the White House again
the ghosts of 800,000 Rwandans roar in my ears
it is deafening.
Rwanda Poem 4
(Who’s To Blame?)
It's not my place to say what others could
and should have done. I will not speak of Rwandans
or other Africans and will leave it to them
to face their own. But here in my home
there is the truth of turning away
and it is about whose life is worth what to whom
and it matters deeply
what could and should and was not done.
Rwanda Poem 5
(The Real Powerful)
The wives of the men who committed the genocide
and the wives who survived without husbands or babies
or even a place to lie down. Gather together slowly
and are simply human to each other
in a way few even manage to be in traffic
with strangers.
There are people we do not know
doing the real work of healing this world.