The Skies Are Weeping

Two poems.

Two songs.

Click on the song's title to listen to the music. Then - in the old window - click back to the words here.

The Skies are Weeping

The birds have flown away
With rain-sodden flowers in hand
I wait for you, Rachel…

The rain drops trickle
Washing the scent off the mourning tulips
Pounding the healing earth
The howling winds and trembling blades of grass
Calling for you, Rachel…

Dust dancing around my knees
Walling me in, and my grief
From the weeping heavens faintly at first
I hear you, Rachel…

You give strength to my tears
And resolve to my limbs
As I stand up with my broken tulips
The skies are clearing
The earth is sprouting fresh blades of grass
That whisper your name, Rachel…

The winds are gentle
Reassuring in their calmness
Heaven and earth rejoice today
As you’re with me again, Rachel…

--- Thushara Wijeratna

Rachel's Words

Feel sick to my stomach a lot
from being doted on all the time,
very sweetly,
by people who are facing doom.

You can always hear the tanks and bulldozers
passing by.
I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers
outside our house
and you and me inside.
Tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses
the livelihoods for 300 people.
Then the bulldozers come and take out
people’s vegetable farms and gardens.

This happens every day.

I think that I should at least mention that
I am also discovering a degree of strength
and of basic ability for humans to remain human
in the direst of circumstances.

I think the word is dignity.

I wish you could meet these people.

Maybe, hopefully, someday
you will.

--- Rachel Corrie