May I Have a Moment?

I request the moon
and am humbled
by the faint
voice of a mother
in Darfur
asking for blessings
on her bread
and for her daughter
not to come back
from collecting
scarce wood
for the fire
with the tears
of the broken,
slashed by
the riders,
but oh, GOD,
if she is,
that she
just
come
back.

In the refugee camps, the women go out to collect wood, which is not plentiful, for cooking fires. There is danger from the Jangaweed who often ride on horseback, terrorizing the people who venture from the fragile safety of the camps. The women go, because, if the men go out, the men will be killed. If the women go out, they are only raped and left alive to bear the pain and shame and sometimes the children of their tormenters.

Read more here... Committee on Conscience and see the pictures from an eyewitness here... Darfur Eyewitness

Don't be afraid to ask....