{"id":259,"date":"2015-05-11T19:15:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/amotherscry\/?page_id=259"},"modified":"2015-05-11T19:15:38","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:15:38","slug":"responses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/responses\/","title":{"rendered":"Responses to A Mother’s Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathy Swart<\/strong> is a librarian and writer who enjoys studying Brazil’s language, music, and dance. Her research led her to Dr. James Green’s work and Marcos’ story, which inspired this poem.<\/p>\n

For Marcos Arruda upon Reading A Mother\u2019s Cry
\nJuly 2013<\/p>\n

North Carolina: Afternoon thunderheads cluster
\nwaiting to release their floods.
\nAgainst the whiteness twin military jets soar
\nabove the swooping cardinals.
\nAre they heading to the base
\nwhere we trained those who tortured you?<\/p>\n

Washington D.C.: You fled here half-dead,
\na student visa your only shield
\nagainst machine guns.
\nYears you struggled to stay
\ntoiling like Sisyphus
\nin a nation too distracted to care.<\/p>\n

You found America\u2019s beauty soft.
\nWas it softness that made our officials
\nShrug at the news
\nof the priest with his face shot away,
\nlaugh at the photo
\nof the man on the parrot\u2019s perch,
\nignore the memo about the girl
\nsuspended like that
\n43 hours
\nwith no food or water?<\/p>\n

Forty-odd years ago
\nyou stood where I do, holding signs.
\n\u201cStop U.S. Aid to Brazil\u2019s Dictatorship.\u201d
\nThey blocked you
\nso Nixon could take tea with M\u00e9dici,
\n\u201cThe Monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing at the Vietnam Memorial
\nI read names of the dead.
\nI think
\nthey left some out.
\nNames of idealistic boys
\nbodies lashed to poles like wounded deer
\nscreams drowning out the sizzle
\nof Army-issue generators,
\ntales of their last hours buried with their corpses
\nin the hills of Andorinha, Araguaia–
\nmute witnesses
\nto Brazil\u2019s pact with the Devil
\nblessed by U.S. dollars.<\/p>\n

Your mother\u2019s cry has become my own.
\nAs thunderheads surge over the Capitol
\nhow I wish like them
\nto release the torrents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy Swart is a librarian and writer who enjoys studying Brazil’s language, music, and dance. Her research led her to Dr. James Green’s work and Marcos’ story, which inspired this poem. For Marcos Arruda upon Reading A Mother\u2019s Cry July … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-259","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/259\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/amotherscry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}