IN SOMALIA, A BETHLEHEM: TWO MORE CHRISTMAS POEMS

IN SOMALIA, A BETHLEHEM:

TWO MORE CHRISTMAS POEMS

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not:  for of such is the kingdom of God. --- St. Mark ch. 10 v. 14, the Holy Bible

1.  Los Ninos Inocentes

Heaven can wait. Hell cannot. Cut them

like flotsam and weed-traps wrapping

bloated carrion beelining toward the sea.

What controls cannot contain, infanticide

could quickly provide: terminate them,

abort before a trimester germinates more

burden, stop the plague of life on a dying

planet. When echoes of children’s laughter

could no longer be heard in a muted valley,

the elusive peace and quiet would be there,

no duties to rear, no grain shortages; wars

will cease from an attrition of warriors,

old soldiers wither in unstocked barracks,

the draftees will stop coming. They have all,

all perished, in abortion camps, in famine

camps, in evacuation camps, in flood camps,

in garbage dumps and landfills, God’s Act

stamped across records to avoid insurance

runs. The boys have been massacred before

in the hills of Bethlehem, and the pillage

written about in Gospel language as the day

of the innocents, now los ninos inocentes. 

Why can’t that be done again? No in vitros

will be possible, nor will it be allowed either.

Do not copulate, depopulate, depopulate!

Pill boxes will bear this mandate, absent

the plea for missing kids, more is better.

Hell will be heaven on earth, death is life,

and nothing will be everything. Zero sum.

Wrath descended, Apocalypse has come. 

2. Somalia’s Bethlehem

Sometime in the gloom of this dread, a hill

of burning sand replaces the stable manger,

and Somalia’s desert becomes a new world’s

Bethlehem. In its famine zones, a limp baby

struggles to stay alive. Minhaj Gedi Farah,

starves under a mosquito net in the world’s

largest refugee camp, “even his mother

has given up hope that her baby boy, Minhaj,

would survive,” reports the Associated Press. 

But magi and shepherds alike did not need a star

to lead them back to his tent. No gold, no myrrh,

nor incense gifted, just a mix of Plumpy’Nut,

AP calls a “cute name for vitamins and minerals

saving Minhaj. Three packets a day of the peanut-

based paste help a child gain up to two pounds

in a single week. It doesn’t require cooking or

refrigeration...Today, Baby Minhaj is thriving,

growing from seven lbs. in July to 18 pounds

in October, 2011.” And our world will not give up,

on all that is innocent. Not this boy, not all Earth’s

boys. No massacre will cut them down again,

nor troops to slay them in brutal Kenya camps.

There will be time enough for a Calvary, but not now,

nor Minhaj need be a redeemer. Mankind in his tent

will not be taxed for the sturdiest crucifying lumber,

all they need are 21 packets of Plumpy’Nut at $10,

and a deluge of epiphany: they are this brother’s keeper. 

--- Albert B. Casuga

12-29-11