GLOBALIZATION

Africa's babies are starving. They can find no milk at their mothers' breasts, It has dried up. Dried up because their mothers, Given free samples of powdered milk tried it out. And while they tried it out, Their breasts, unsuckled, dried up. That which was natural Replaced by that which was unnatural. Manufactured, Must be purchased, No longer free as the milk that came with The body God gave them-- No longer functioning for nourishment These breasts have lost their reason for being Like a breast that is lost to cancer. It is replaced with an unnatural manufactured one. One that does not function or feel naturally. The woman who loses her breast to cancer May not die from her loss. The child who has lost the milk of Mother's breast may. No other food is coming to replace the missing milk For the babies, their siblings. For their mothers and fathers. Without the funds to pay for powdered milk in adequate amounts They waste away like the stores of food that sit on docks, In railway stations, sent from overseas By we who have seen their starvation Staring out from silently suffering eyes On our television sets, in our living rooms, While we prepare our tax returns That will help fund bombs instead of bread. And the food we have sent piles up rotting by the tracks, As leaders and guerilla fight over its disposition. It rots like our promises to be our sisters' and brothers' keepers. Oh, Africa your current history is like a bleeding wound That will not heal until the evil, The starvation and the slaughter, This cancer of social injustice, Has been severed forever.

Mixed Media © 1992, Betsy Noorzay