Bitter Harvest

The Language of Life is one of my favorite books and if I were a teacher of Contemporary American Literature or of Creative Writing I would surely choose it for required reading. But things have turned out differently and I am but an unknown poet testifying the truth, bearing witness to this undeclared war this chilling reality of massacre unchecked here, in Ciudad Juarez. And I remember the Salvadoran poet, Claribel Alegria, that she writes in this book of "planting angels" and how the interviewer, Bill Moyers, puzzles at the phrase and then her explanation- that in her country, in addition to planting coffee they also plant "angels" referring to children buried, their young souls innocent hence- "angels". And I realize that here too, in Juarez, in this parched desert earth earth that yields but little- cotton, sunflowers for seed, we plant angels... Children caught in the crossfire like the 4 year old girl slain with her mother just last Saturday... And I remember too, reading in criminology that the necessary elements of a crime are means and motive but I wonder what motive is there for the slaughter of innocents? I only know that here, we plant angels and this madness reaps a bitter harvest- a harvest of tears and despair.