to haiti. A Poem by Tamera Griffin.
As many of us are, I am at a loss with the recent disaster that shook Haiti. While I am still finding my own words, I’d like to share a poignant piece by a brilliant young writer named Tamera Griffin from my hometown of Sacramento, California.
**********************
For Haiti
I used to tell people that I was born during an earthquake,
Used to randomly insert that statement between layers of bland conversation the way
Crumpled dollar bills magically appear in the
Back pockets of my jeans among
Decaying bus passes and
Receipts that remind me of my unhealthy spending habits.
“Oh, really?” they’d ask, and in all my uninhibited bravado
I would sincerely hope that they pictured my mother
Blinking through streams of sweat,
Gripping the rails of the hospital bed to keep her grounded against
Geo-turbulence as she
Delivered the final push that
Brought forth 8.6lbs of
Tamerra Nikol Griffin into the world.
I wanted this personal Snapple fact to
Serve as a metaphor, that I was a girl
Who could withstand potentially detrimental phenomena
—like earthquakes, floods, and single parent syndrome—
And still come out on top.
Now it wasn’t until just recently,
When my obsession with earthquakes began,
That I learned I wasn’t actually delivered in the middle of an earthquake—
“It was hours after,” my mom told me—
And that the earthquake I wasn’t actually born during,
Did not break past a five on the Richter scale.
But when tension builds between tectonic plates,
One becomes the Titanic and the other, an iceberg and
Before the world has a chance to
Turn a conscious eye to a country that was
Already trembling beneath the burden of poverty,
The indestructible tag team of
Grief and Trauma seep through cracks in the
Earth’s surface, forcing homes to collapse like
Houses made of playing cards and
Feeding on the lives and souls of the vulnerable.
And the aftershock was equally unbearable.
Graphic images and video clips revolved around CNN like
Infomercials at two in the morning, rendering even the most
Desensitized viewers momentarily paralyzed,
Because whose legs can still function after seeing
An old woman’s femur shattered on the inside,
And knowing the only thing holding her leg together is skin?
And when I see shots of children, aimlessly trekking
Mountainous debris like newborn zombies,
I cannot tell if their eyes have gone grey because
They are malnourished, or because the horrific sights that have
Passed before their pupils sucked away their vivacious color.
I cannot tell if their once-plump lips have shriveled like raisins
Because they are thirsty, or because their mouths have been stretched like
Rubber bands, repeatedly shouting,
« Ou est mon frère? Ou est ma mère? Ou est mon bras ? »
Where is my brother? Where is my mother? Where is my arm?
At night, when the wind blows through the trees outside my bedroom window,
Creating a symphony of haunting sound,
I imagine the response to a somber doctor’s face returning from the OR,
Or a father’s disappointment at not being able to fight to feed his family.
At night, I pray that victims are not plagued by notions that
They are being punished, or that
This natural disaster is natural selection’s way of
Foreshadowing.
Because if anything is worth knowing, Haiti, it’s this:
These broken fault lines are NOT symbolic of your country’s lifeline.
We hear you, and
We are here for you, with all the Neosporin and Band-Aids and lollipops and love
You might possibly need.
Lean on us; we will hold your waist and hop with you when no crutches are in sight.
Wrap your frail arms around us;
We will carry you off this battlefield when the ambulance is taking too long.
Allow your tears to flow freely;
Our shirts will absorb your pain until we can replace them with Kleenex.
Let us cup Hope and Optimism in our hands like water and
Pour it into the mouths of her people,
Pour it into the cracks of her earth for new life to take root.
Haiti, je promets, we will pull you towards that light, that
Shred of light, so small you could balance it on a pinpoint,
Until you can bathe in sunshine again,
A nation reborn during an earthquake.
