desert child: a multimedia experience

Please visit the poetry blog of Charles Martin, the reader of this poem at: www.slpmartin.wordpress.com

desert child
written by Toni L.A. Cross and read by Charles Martin
 
i’m just one
of a crowd
of
tourists
on a hot
and stuffy
bus
filing out
piling out
to buy trinkets
from
bedouin traders
 
amidst the sounds
of haggling prices
and dust
stirred up
by nike sneakers
and sandaled feet
 
a girl
not more than ten
ragged
oversized
clothes
but
luminous
brown eyes
 
she looks
no
stares
no
peers
deeply
into
the
depths
of my quivering soul
 
how can eyes
baby eyes
young eyes
bear the weight
of a thousand wrongs?
 
how can a face
so new
look
so very old
so horribly worn
so weary and tattered?
 
a sweaty mass
of designer jeans
and pricey cameras
lumped back
together
on the bus
 
chitter-chatter
look at this doo-dad
isn’t this
the darnedest thing?
little suzy
will love this
toy camel
aren’t their accents
just too quaint?
 
only i
am still haunted
into silence
by the gaze
of a child
and sobered
to my toes

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