Caravan Of The Water-Bearers By Marjorie Evasco Poem by RIC BASTASA

We will not forget the evil eye
of the storm they raised,
gutting the grounds we defended.
We have been trained
to look away too often
when man’s flesh, muscle, bone,
knifed woman, to protect
the child’s eye from the dust
of the lord’s sin against
our kind, pretending
our tears are daughters of the wind
blowing across no-woman’s- land.
We have had to seek the center
of the storm in the land we claim
is ours, too. Faces keening towards
the full force of winds
once blinding us, we see
the blur of broken earth,
blasted wastes, damned seas.
Our vision clears in our weeping
We have joined the trek
of desert women, humped over
from carrying our own oases
in the claypots of our lives,
gathering broken shards we find
in memory of those who went
ahead of us, alone.
When we seize the watersource
our ranks will complete the circle
we used to mark around our tents,
making homes, villages, temples,
schools, our healing places.
And we will bear witness for
our daughters and sons,
telling them true stories
of the caravan.