Dear UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
May the UN find the missing girls of Abuja
A Prayer for the Girls of Abuja
A prayer bursts through my brain
Cutting through stars
Piercing clouds and sunrise
Chopping rainbows into pieces
Kaleidoscopic pain of young girls
Two scrambling in bushes
Of Abuja
Hiding among limbs and brambles
Now damp with tears
Hiding as the truck
They escaped
Rambles by
Full of young girls’ dreams
A burned school
Burning hate
Blinding the eyes
Of young girls
Crowded in a truck
Now damp with tears
Trucks scream by
One hundred twenty-nine
Young girls
Girded only
With pieces
Of rainbow
(April 17, in Abuja, Nigeria, Boko Haram, whose name means, “Western education is forbidden”, set off a bomb on the outskirts of Abujaba which killed 75 people, then abducted 129 girls, ages 15=18. The girls remain captive)
Sincerely,
Karen Melander-Magoon