A Scorched Earth

When I originally submitted this blog I was entirely tired of typing but I´m better now. This poem doesn´t mean much without the history behind it so here is a quick history of Guatemala durring a period of it´s 36 year civil war. The information is curtosy of Loney Planet:

In 1982, General José Ríos Montt initiated a ¨scorched earth¨ policy, which is believed to have resulted in the extermination of the populations of over 400 villages at the hands of the military. President Ríos Montt, an evangelical Christian, was acting in the name of anti-insurgency, stabilization and anticommunism. An estimated 15,000 people, mostly Mayan men, were tortured and massacred; 100,000 refugees fled to Mexico.

It is a gruesome tale that has no doubt left Guatemala scared for generations. Somehow, despite the history, despite the memories and the effect they have on day to day life, the people of Guatemala carry on.

A Scorched Earth

Guatemala

*

Scorched lives.

Tender to the touch.

Brittle like stacks of cinder.

On a hickory-stove perimeter

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

Neath naked feet

When the rains dont come

The coffee don´t grow.

The children don´t know

How scorched the dusty dirt

Beneath their naked feet

really is.

*

Quenched only by the blood

Of a thousand unaswered prayers;

Like neglected peddlers with their wares

The land stays scorched.

But bears a beautiful fruit.

With a calloused skin,

And a thick, wrought rind.

Oh but this fleshy fruit

If only squeezed

Could sow the seeds that sustain

Rebirth.

Could quench this weary, ravaged

Scortched Earth.

*

Cory Ploessl