On April 18, 2016 I checked out of the local library the newest issue of Time Magazine, dated as such. One of the articles in that issue,
moved me to tears, copious tears. Not only was I moved to tears, I was moved to do something. I decided to undertake a 100 Day Project in which I would keep these victims close to my heart, think about them daily, and write a poem, as well.
My daughter Jonel had made a lovely book for me for my birthday, so lovely I was reluctant to write in it. I thought this a good project for this book.
Each day I wrote something in this book, starting with the opening page above...
and this, page one. I divided each page into quarters in order to get the 100 I needed.
The first poem I wrote:
(Day 1)
For Mary
It is a warm, lovely, sun-filled day,
I hear the birds
singing
as I sit here on the deck
clean and quiet
after a bath.
Yet I am deep inside somewhere
so black and ugly
and dirty
I am the weight of the universe.
Here in my unsullied world,
pencil moving
across this page,
I am safe and privileged,
protected from
the ravages of war,
while Mary, far across the seas
in South Sudan,
has watched soldiers kill her husband and sons,
watched as they
took her ten year old daughter
and repeatedly raped her…
and Mary watched,
and then Mary watched her die.
Another news item, excellent reporting to be sure,
yet we read it
distantly,
surely with anguish, but momentary
and soon we get
on with our lives,
and Mary is forgotten,
or lost in our
busyness.
Inured, we are inured to such news,
so common it only
pricks us
instead of stabs and bludgeons us
with its
brutality.
We are a people,
we are a world,
what is done to one
is done to all.
4/19/16
...following is a small selection of poems from throughout the project...
(Day 9)
For the Unnamed Women
I have written eight poems,
for eight women
named,
but what of the masses
of unnamed women,
women who live in shame
and sorrow,
women who are shunned
and still
misused?
What of all those women
in all those
countries,
mere objects to be demeaned,
defiled in ways
only
a man could do?
What of those hordes of women
I have not read
about,
the hordes of little girls
raped and ruined?
What of them,
I ask myself,
what of them?
4/27/16
(Day 53)
Unmentioned Women
All the unmentioned women and girls,
the unnamed
raped,
spirits hovering the newspaper article,
the article that
clearly said,
‘seventeen men, one a ten year old boy,
executed by
pro-government forces,
raped and misused women lumped under
‘mistreatment’
and ‘torture’’,
they call out to be named.
We need to make clear
blatantly public,
the sex crimes perpetrated
in these war torn
countries.
We need to bellow and holler
these atrocities,
name them clearly,
take
responsibility,
make them our own…
and not add to the crimes
by omission.
6/10/16
These are from days 65 to 68...
...and the last two poems I wrote.
(Day 99)
A Tiny Stirring
You do not know of this,
my Hundred Day
Journey,
how each and every morning
I brought you
close,
embraced you in my heart,
held you high in
my mind
and wished these acts
had power, real
power
and could have truly reached
out to you with
comfort.
Perhaps somewhere in your misery
a tiny stirring
happened,
perhaps a ripple of my love
and care and
concern
reached out to you with a touch
that softened,
if only for a moment
your dire world.
7/26/16
(Day 100)
Carrying You Close
How to pen this last,
this 100th
poem,
how to end this vigil
I have kept,
how to do tomorrow
without sitting
down
with you?
This seems difficult,
perhaps
impossible,
surely poignant and sad,
yet, I know you
all
have come to dwell in me
and altered me in
ways
both grave and permanent.
I will not abandon you,
and pray that
carrying you close
has somehow become known to you.
7/27/16
and this is the back cover with a photo of Aryn Baker, the author of the article.
Tomorrow, February 14, 2017 is the day that people all around the world will be coming together in support of violence and rape against women...it is called One Billion Rising....see link below.
www.onebillionrising.org/about/campaign/
1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That's ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. Every February, we rise – in hundreds of ...
Last Saturday this event occurred in La Crosse, WI, as the venue was not available on the 14th. A large group of women and men and children attended.
I was asked to read selections from my 100 Day Project, and I was proud to be among the women and men who publicly came together to rally against such violence.
If we all come together, if only in thought and heart, we will make a difference.
