Poem by an Old Friend on the Migrants Who Die in the Sonoran Desert

My friend Dorothy Chao, whom I first knew in Berea, Kentucky, now lives near Tucson, Arizona with her husband Gene. She and some of her friends try to care for the migrants from Mexico, Central America, and South America who risk everything trying to cross the Sonoran Desert. Sometimes they go out into the desert to pray at the graves of the ones who didn't make it. Some of the names of the migrants who die are unknown, "Desconcocida." Here is Dorothy's poem:

DESCONOCIDA

                  By Dorothy Chao

Now—

In the dark

I lie on my mat in the desert—

Beautiful, savage desert.

Blowing wind, rustling mesquite—

What woke me?

Moving in the scrub near our camp

Flashes of light and a night bird cry.

Desconocida—

Found in the desert today

Were  you a daughter, sister, mother, wife?

Did you think of your family when you died?

Did you think of your home

In Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru?

Did you see the flowers, the stars

That I did?

Or did the burning thirst,

The heat of the day

The chill of the night

Call forth the savage side of the desert only?

Did the Border Patrol come with the helicopter

Bouncing and buzzing above you like an angry bee,

And scatter your group on the rocky ground below

Like leaves before the dry desert wind?

Were you pulled along through the cactus by another

Till you could go no further

Then sacrificed—

Left behind for the survival of the group?

Did you grieve the separation from the others

Regret words spoken, unspoken,

Did you wish for the physical closeness of another human

As you died?

Did you see the town lights from your hiding place

Here in a desert wash?

Did your terror keep you still

Even as dehydration and exposure did their work?

Restless spirit,

Victim of global forces beyond your control,

Forgive my complicity!

Come sit with me thru the dark of this night.

Baptize me with your spirit,

Help me to carry your voice forward,

Speak through me

So that neither of our lives will be in vain!

Dorothy's poem and the work of "Pilgrimage of Remembrance" (click here for their blog) remind me of the song "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)," written by Woody Guthrie back in 1948. That song was written partly because the newspapers didn't name the victims--they were all anonymous, unnamed--just deportees. Here's Woody's son Arlo singing that song some 50 years after the "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos":

The Enormity of the World's Grief; the Great Gift of Companions

I just got an email from some old friends, Gene and Dorothy Chao, now living in Arizona. Their email had the following sign off: 

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.  Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.  You are not obligated to complete the work.  But neither are you free to abandon it."-- from the Talmud.

I immediately thought--these old friends are just like my new friends in the Karpos ministry at St. Mary's in Painesville. Thinking of all these friends, I wrote the following little poem:

Thanksgiving for Companions

Dear Lord

we thank you for our family

our friends, these amazing companions

we share our lives with these women

and men of courage share

our bread and music, song

and suffering

thank you lord for these amazing gifts

let me be a gift to them also

[Bob Coughlin / March 29, 2014]