Broken Mozaic - A Poem by Ada Amara

Broken Mosaic

Broken Mosaic, shattered relic

Pieces strewn about you.

Tiny fragments, larger swatches

All over  the globe that surrounds you

Your children fill the cracks, the corners, the surfaces

With hopes to survive, to dream again of possibilities

But in the sunken orifices and jagged ridges

on the barren deserts and war battered landscapes

hearts sink and heads bow

babies bleed, and people die, labor, plead

Spirits are shrunken. Prayer has not rebuilt our shattered lives. We ask

How much longer must we suffer? Must we swelter and starve

Clinging to the fringes of our Mother’s cloth?

Few find footholds in luck and luxury.

More mind exit routes, depart their ancestry

We must rebuild

We must heal

We must getup

We must mend

We must plant, farm, produce construct

We must reclaim, love , protect, defend

But above all, we must reconnect

How else to see the picture our creator did intend?

How else to help my sister reemerge from the cracks and cleaves

Draped in the robes of pride and dignity our cultures on us adorn

Piece by piece, clump by clump, a fluid puzzle with shifting shape

We remake, we stitch back, we combine and redesign

Broken mosaic, shattered relic,

But motherland, we still recognize you

You have an everlasting strength, a beauty that will never die

So do not lie and weep, but gather and rise

For your children need you

Though the booted foot of the armed soldier hover over you

Though the strings of the puppeteer hope to bind you

These can not hold power in the face of your true strength

These will not claim victory over your determined stride.

Written by: Ada Amara