Love immersing the river
A door opens for me to enter
To hug, to sit, to smile
A hand to hold
Courage to shout through walls
Digo la verdad! (I tell the truth)
Prayers shake out our anger
Outside, voices rise
Heat in the air
In their voices
O Dios mio, no! (Oh my God, no!)
Yet we come not to judge
But to decide to protect
Mandarin to cool
She opens the door to stand
Aqui yo estoy para frente (Here I am out front, up front)
Si, digo la verdad!
My community
Will support me, protect me
She breathes heavy, but poised
Out from behind the walls.
April is National Poetry Month and every day the peaceCENTER will be posting a poem about walls, fences, edges, borders. . . you get the idea. Walls that separate us, protect us, define us, challenge us . . . we collected these poems for our Walls Symposium in 2009.
Charletta Erb, a Mennonite and graduate of the Peace & Justice Studies program at Goshen College, is a family therapist in California. This poem arose from her time as a volunteer with Christian Peacemaking Teams in Colombia.
