Requiem for the Discarded

It's 5am in New York, it's far too late to write a coherent entry, but I need to say something -- to begin.

I think in the beginning I hid. I left the news off. I refused to click on the links. Then I finally did, and I knew all too well why I'd been avoiding it. The overwhelming enormity of the tragedy. The senseless suffering after the natural disaster had passed, when it became a hell crafted with human hands. Babies being raped. Children being raped. People of all ages being shot. Bodies lying where they died, stripped of even their final human dignity. Total darkness. Lack of food and water. Savagery without limit ruling over frail decency. All of this and far more, I had tried to forestall absorbing. I had to face it though. The tremors were already rattling in my spirit anyway. I felt the shockwaves of human agony reach me long before I turned on the TV.

Who will speak for us? Who will tell our stories? Did we die in vain? Justice, Lord, we want Justice! I didn't die in the waters Lord, I died because no one came to save me...I died because they had guns and rage and I had my baby on my lap, and nothing to eat and it was so dark...Oh Lord, the smell of death...all around...the crying and howling in the night...and in the darkest days...the angel of death came and I was ready to leave...so weary...so thirsty...I just wanted to lay down in peace somewhere...I just wanted You to carry me Home...