WHO WILL CRY?

By Sr. Esther Jeruto Koros (OSF)

Who will cry for the little girl, crying her eyes scarlet?

Who will cry for the little girl, who knows very little and understands none?

Who will cry for the little girl, whose heart is shredded goblets?

Who will cry for the little girl, who dreads the next rising sun?

Who will cry for the little girl, whose budding dreams are dimmed?

Who will cry for the little girl, who’s cocooned in distrust?

 

There’s a class she attended, wherein she learnt to hope.

There’s a church she went, wherein she obtained faith.

There’s home she came to know, wherein she knew trust.

There are slopes soft and fervent, whereon she chewed shamrocks.

There is a river she swum, wherein she felt gleeful.

And there is a thick webbed bamboo, under which she picked gooseberries.  

 

Then a face so familiar, formerly tender, ruined it all;

The face was the good person she had grown to know.

The face was her Father, her uncle, her brother, her neighbor.  

Emerged from the shrubs, she felt a sudden tough grip;

A blend of pain and betrayal and disappointment and shock.

Marked a new age for her; so tender yet gothic.

 

A kind of blindness that sees what lies beneath,

The kind of lesson that unwinds the old, shunning hope away,

The kind of faith that whispers fear into the soul,

The kind of baptism that reorients from a home to a house,  

The kind of quiet threateningly both eerie and drowning,

Slopes and shrubs traitorous; its gooseberries poisonous,

 

Who will cry for the little girl, wobbling and wandering who to turn to?

For she is the fruit plucked too soon, the light paled too soon.

She is just a little girl, a mother of another little girl.

You! Will you? 

©October 2020

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