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Honey and Tea On television I saw the documentary Of boys sitting on the sand, maybe 50 With a woman cracking a whip over their heads So they could chant a prayer They, orphaned and lost, no food or medicine Left in Africa by the Taliban All men killed Flies buzzing Where were the girls No I’m not exaggerating One child held up a paper to shield the sun They were dead No life in their eyes Already dead among the buzzing flies I long ago asked God how I could still believe That’s an old question Now I ask myself How can I write this Now I say I do not want this cup.  Grace Cavalieri is Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate. She founded, and produces, "The Poet and The Poem" from The Library of Congress celebrating 47 years on-air. Her new book is "The Long Game: Poems Selected & New."
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WHO WE ARE “The cry did knock/against my very heart…” The Tempest When we do not feed the hungry children in Biafra Looking at tourists, then we are the camera, staring. If we do not take away their starvation, then We are also the black marketeers who stole their food. We are the karmic seeds of Viet Nam Running ablaze with fire on our backs. We’re the hummingbird flying the Atlantic in March. We are Katrina because clothes were soaked, and when There was no more food, when no help came, We were the empty verbs. These are the tears that come unbidden for Mozambique, For starving children in the trees, Waiting for rescue helicopters. All this, When there were other possibilities. Don’t you feel the heartbeat of the earth, the knob We could turn? The magical tree we could put back in the rain forest? Can you count the number of women sold to slavery we could wrap In warm cotton and bring back home? Riding an idea is like riding the wind Unless we harness its lonely tumult, unless we give the fruits Of the earth to open mouths and aching stomachs. We are the rain on the cold hungry dog in the streets of Chile, The disfigured man in prison, the mass deaths in Bosnia. We are the shame of the soldier who thought he should Die instead of his buddy. We are the broken clock of The widows of war, their last dreams filled with absence. If we are the ones who do not feed, comfort or save-- We are the grave. AFRICA Children sitting in the dirt all in a row Children sitting in the dirt A row of children in the dirt Tin cups in a row Flies in the eyes of children A row of children in the dirt Children with big bellies Dear God what is the perfection in this? That we see and still believe? Click on the file below to listen to the poem: 
 Grace Cavalieri is Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate. She's founder/ producer of "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio ,celebrating 44 years on-air, now produced at the Library of Congress. Her new poetry book is The Secret Letters of Madame de Stael (Goss pub. 2021).
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