Gander Story Poems: Flower Bud 1-15-14

January 15, 2014

(This poem is based on Jellee's true story in Liberia, Africa)

The child is very precious. She smiles and so enjoys

to play with sticks and little stones, because she has no toys.

She lives inside a little hut of thatch, palm leaves and mud.

Appreciates, she does, so much a little flower bud.

She tries to educate herself. She cannot spell or read.

She questions other villagers determined to succeed.

Her time is not eventful and a schedule, none to keep.

Each day is like the other ones until she goes to sleep.

The sounds at night are scary so she spends much time in prayer.

In Africa, it's not the same. There's terror everywhere.

The rebels have machetes and they do what they will.

Disgusting things and ugly things, they terrorize and kill.

And then one day it happened. They came with knives and guns.

And many had machetes, killed fathers, mothers, sons.

They even killed the little girls. How many, she's not sure.

They tortured, killed her parents while they were holding her.

She screamed and cried and screamed some more. They threw her to the ground.

but then this girl escaped them all with rebels standing 'round.

She did survive two bullet wounds (left ankle and right side),

but many, many, many more cried painfully and died.

Now only God protected her in coma for two weeks -

so she can tell the rest of us life's answers that we seek.

We often do not listen though- for ignorance is bliss,

but we are so mistaken. What matters most is this:

Please choose the day you change your wish to live a life of ease

to focus on our Lord's command to help the "least of these".

Do not forget that Jesus spilled, for us, his blood.

So choose the day and help another precious 'flower bud'.

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This is a condensed version.

I spoke to her again earlier this month. She's been living in the US for a few years now..

The full poem is lengthier and called "Blooming From Roots" and can be seen here: