TOO MANY QUESTIONS, HAITI

Why do you get under my skin,
why do you crawl through my blood,
why do you open my pores and make me vulnerable and scared?

You make me feel helpless,
you make me feel strong, you make me wonder where have we gone wrong.
You make me wonder, what do you continue to do wrong.
 
Is it history? Is it destiny? Is it me, is it you, is it all ah we? oh Haiti!
 
You keep crawling under my skin Haiti,
Oh Haiti, what have I done to you...
What are you doing to me?
That you should come in and pick my blood drip by drip…
 
Is not my aid reaching your crevices, healing you, healing your land?

Is it that our aid is making fat pockets fatter?
Is your plight and your seeming demise an opportunity for Governments,
for the rich perhaps or the opportunists?
Does it set sail vessels with gold for those who feed on the fat of the land?
 
Can’t this state of destitution bring you to your knees,
make you want to plant trees, just so you can feel the breeze again?
Wonder where the wind comes from and where it goes?
Is not that kind of mystery better for the soul?
 
Why Haiti? Why do you haunt minds saturated with questions,
with thoughts of you and solely you,
with no room for answers?
 
Oh Haiti tell us what to do! 
We can beam down David Rudder’s “Haiti I’m sorry” by satellite radio on your land,
just so you know we are truly sorry, sorry enough to put pen to paper,
sorry enough to write it and sing it to you,
but do please, tell us what to do.
 
Should we banish the land?
Leave it as a home for natural disasters, voodoo and poverty?
Is it not better that families be divided by refugee camps,
scattered across Mother Nature's palm?
 
How many of you would go over yonder to the lands of plenty,
or come right here and soak, in the Caribbean sea and sun?
 
Is it the land, is it the people, or the location that brings out the worst in Mother –
that makes her Nature frequent you so often.
 
How many would take you in and shelter? Feed?
Your offspring, oh Haiti, tell us what you want us to do.
 
Tell us what you want us to do,
when another quake pulls the earth out from under you.
Tell us what to do when another devastating mudslide slides freely into your lives
with no forest to stop it from reaching the finish line,
nowhere to nowhere.

Tell us what to do when the hurricanes blow through your land
too hard, and take your minds with it,
and leave the hearts behind.
Oh Haiti tell us what to do, please, tell us what to do.