A new branch of an old River: Dr. Mary Calder on Libya

A new branch of an old River: Dr. Mary Calder on Libya

A new branch of an old River
Thoughts on the regime change in Libya
Summer of 2011
Dr. Mary Calder

Begun in times forgotten
Flowing steadily now
For forty plus years
Streets running red
Hospital abandoned
Dead strewn about the floors
And a few surviving strong men
A leader once-
has hidden away
yet directs death from afar
with a price upon his head
People celebrating
People dying
Others lying
What a battle
Day by day
Marching the coastline
City by city
Bombed to dust and rubble
A river runs
And still flows on
Blood-
the life of the body
but only while in the veins
and still pumped by the heart
Flows in gutters and
Soaks into sand
A rich food for a killing field
Grown fat for foreign aided death
Joy
Fear
Sorrow
All emotions that play on the heart
But they cannot stop the flow
The flow grows and grows
Flowing in gutters
To puddle on streets
Pool on floors
Of homes and hotels
Tic tac toe on sidewalks
But not for a child’s game
Just marred and marked
Death happened here
Rebels’, patriots
Freedom from oppressors
Hope and tears
Tear at the mind
And fracture the heart
While the new river grows
And flows to soak
Into a desert nations sands
And time
And life
And the river
Flow unchanged
On
And on
And on

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