A barren land is thirsty for rain
Its dry sands can’t yield any grain
The ground printed with bare footmarks
And a soldier boot prints in their tracks
Famine was signalised by a beautiful sign
The innocence of a bright and cloudless blue sky
Under it they pray to the gods to make the clouds weep
As their water wells ebb down into sips
Tears fall more frequently than rain
Sinking into the hot arid terrain
The wind whistles by without moisture
It blows past them carrying away their prayers
They look to the skies for humanitarian manna
To the same sky they look out and dread the gunners
The land the poor till for survival
Is the land on which the rich kill for minerals
Women and their babies live their fighting men behind
Asylum lies beyond the unknown borderlines
Their land is just a name and memory, home is no more
A place they came from, now in the claws of famine and war
Dedication: To the struggle for peace in South Sudan
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