A Rain of Tears
by Rosalind Maya Lama

Behind the locked doors of your offices
rattle of drawers made of metal
Filed and faded the papers
Trapped the names of the children
and the names of the parents
The inheritance of ancestors
(You sold them for shekels).
A rain of tears of congealed iron
Prison bars made of churches
brains pickled in dogma
freudian gibberish of upright intentions
Pointed hat of the judge,
still disposing
In the arrogance of power
While the grey ghosts of the children
That you poked and you prodded
Haunt the doorways and tunnels
And the prisons and the graveyards
Yet unburied, their ashes
Unanswered, their questions
A rain of tears of congealed iron.

Rosalind Maya Lama is a birthmother whose biracial child was taken into adoption
against her will by the Louise Wise agency of New York. Read her Letter to the Editor
of the Bastard Quarterly for details on her case.

copyright 1997 R. Maya Lama

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