Pieta

Benson's grandson, still unnamed, died last night, aged a week old.

Benson phoned early this morning to let us know.  He phoned too because all the family money had had to go on settling the hospital bills to release his grandson's body. He, his grieving son and his baby grandson were stranded in Kisumu, unable to get home as they no longer had any busfare.  I mpesad what funds there were on my phone, and more as the Palm Sunday shops slowly opened.

Tragically, some situations just can't be saved.  I understand that.  But we live in a world where humanity has chosen to spend money on placing men on the moon; on waging trillion dollar wars.  All the while in Kenya, 121 children of every 1000 born, die before their fifth birthday.  In UK the parallel statistic is 6 children.

Children die in UK too. The Millenium Development Goals are really focussing minds, and budgets, on childhood and maternal mortality. But each loss, preventable or not, is a lifelong tragedy for a family.  And here, standing close to the loss of this much-loved child, I've been made so aware how the pressures on a stressed family are increased by the necessary sums, the financial calculations which families here have to go through. What can we do? How much can we afford? How will we manage afterwards?

His funeral is tomorrow. God bless him and his family. 

Let Evening Come

This Christmas time friends in UK have been living through chemotherapy and through bereavement. They, and beloved family, have felt far far away.  Other Christmas cards have trickled in, with messages of loneliness bravely born, of sadnesses brushed off in a one line ps.  So, in the way of the dedication at a gig, this poem is for you, in celebration of your courage and of sunrises to come. You know who you are.  I wish I were there with you now.  With my warmest love.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon