By Shara Esbenshade

Gargoyle contributor


Posted Thursday, March 1, 2007, The OG, in depth & creative writing

Note: This poem is about the workers who labor in the sugar cane fields of the Dominican Republic. Many of the workers come from Haiti, and they live with their families in shantytowns called bateyes. The author of this poem, Shara Esbenshade, will join English teacher Adele Suslick and several other Uni students on a trip to a Dominican Republic batey this summer. The trip is just one of the many activities of the Global Studies Initiative, a Uni student organization sponsored by Suslick. To read Gargoyle reporter Andrew Lovdahl's article on the group's Dominican Republic trip, click here.

Multimedia: To listen to Shara Esbenshade recite this poem, click here. To listen to Shara discuss her poem with Gargoyle staff member Maddy Hamlin, click here.

Another Kind of Loss

Sweet sugar cane

très abundant

tellement green

but it's hard to see beauty at

the end of the day

eyes are clouded (so much soleil)

touch is numb (so much travail)

smell and taste are difficult to fathom at

the end of the day.

The eyes of human need

don't shut with questions in the way,

with disappearing pay,

hidden behind yet

another

day.

Another day of slowly robbing

sugar cane of beauty

and people of dignity.

It is sun-dried skin,

It is sun-squeezed sweat,

brown backs that fertilize this brown dirt

and this dirty business.

Another day of deprived senses

Another day of slaughtered love:

the land was once beautiful under rays

of admiring gazes;

it turns the gray of money under

bitter, tired hands.

Yes, it's a bitter sweat and angry tears

makes this sugar cane grow so sweet.