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HELICOPTER
In a torn hunk of dirt it kneels, busted to pieces but
still a thing
to reckon with. For everyone who was there the day it
fell.
There isn’t much else to fix on. A few people trying
to grow something to eat,
scoring the soil with tools strung together from
pepper tree limbs.
Adolescent ex-militia, now rigged out in police gear.
idly dotting the dusty clay patch where one road
chops north to Gbarnga, and the other to yet more
dust.
Snarled weeds, snug as hothouse orchids, teem in the
split glass nose.
Kids shimmy in to pretend they are commandos diving
over the fields of Lofah,
howling blades whipping their ears to frenzy.
I hear one small boy say he wishes the war were still
on
so he could have his chance to fly.
I understand him. After all, it is the biggest.
grandest gadget he has ever known.
He was not even born when the blades ground their
final orbit
before the steep ungainly descent. He would not have
seen much of the war
that he can rightly recall. Its habit is simply
embedded in him—
like always expecting nothing, no matter how hungry
you get.
He tells me that a famous warlord can pull aircraft
from the sky, like this one,
by a leisurely force of will, easily as you or I
might drop yam seeds
into a hole. The claim is no less absurd than
the want of seeds here.
where they are needed most and the land is least
receptive. Something in me
wants to slap the air and scream for an exodus, as if
anywhere else existed.
I imagine the speedometer has been wired into the dash
of a lopsided bus
resuscitated by a church group. And the engine,
slugged into the belly
of a half-eaten barge. I am momentarily surprised
that, in this scarce place,
the dented husk has not become shelter for someone
with nowhere else to go. As we set out towards the
rising night,
I notice a pitchfork across the road, shoved upright
into the mud,
guarding the vacant field.
BOY BATHING UNDER A COCO PALM
Every morning I see him
toddling through the long damp grass
with a red plastic pail full of water.
He moves carefully, but quick as he can,
keeping the weight pressed to the front of his belly,
both hands gripping the crooked wire handle
with a steadiness he has not had much time to learn.
He’s three and a half, four at most.
Every day I wonder how long he has known
how to can-v out this complicated private chore.
He sets the pail down slowly, taking pains to
avoid spilling a drop of the ration his mother
ladled from their precious supply
just minutes before. Next, the sponge is wet
and the soap lathered onto it. He starts
at the top of his head, scrubbing hard
with his chin pressed low and eyes squeezed shut.
He moves the sponge back and forth vigorously,
laying thick white suds into the fine, soft nap
of his hair. Back of the ears, then inside,
plying his tiny fingers to get close to the matter.
The rest of the bath is managed with the same sure
stroke,
and with care to prevent muddying
the water he will need for the rinse. He concentrates
hard
to lift the pail, and pours a thin stream over his
head and body.
He does not miss a single spot.
Watching him, I replay the steps of my own morning
bath:
hauling water from a drum, using only what is
necessary, and
nothing, nothing more.
Stephanie Russell is Project Director of an
educational program for war-affected youth and
children in Liberia, West Africa.
Her
program, the Two Hands Arts Initiative, hinges on
student-generated collaborative playwriting and
performance, and has so far resulted in the creation
of four original plays and a chapbook of poetic
monologues by workshop participants.
Stephanie says: The young people with whom I’ve
worked share a passionate desire to resuscitate their
country—and see themselves as citizen-peacebuilders of
the world. It is deeply important for Liberian
kids to be received by the world outside their
war-torn homeland. During its eight-year civil crisis,
Liberia was completely ignored by the international
community, and the sense of isolation has been
devastating to the people there. These young people
deserve to have their efforts towards establishing a
culture of peace recognized and promoted—concretely,
and on the most essential human levels. |