by Barbara Blyth

Lord, you know me quite well.
You know I'd much rather stay home
    in my stifling hot kitchen and bake cream puffs
    than take a liter of yogurt
    to that Fulani lady down there at the hospital.

She doesn't know my language
    and I know very little of hers.

She seems sad and depressed and refuses to move
    from under her blanket.
    But I'm sure I'd feel the same way
        if I had burns all down my arms and legs
        and all I felt was pain
        and somebody tried to make me move
        and the pain was just too excruciating.

Visiting Zanaabu does not lift me up, Lord,
    and I don't want to linger
    in her tiny room at the end of the corridor.
The dozen or so ladies resting on mats along the corridor wall
    greet me as I pass them.
    I have been this way before and they remember.
    The courtyard of hard-packed earth
        is strewn with plastic basins and cooking pots.
    The chain-link fence is draped with freshly laundered wrappers
        adding color and cheer to an otherwise drab place.

Why do you compel me to return to Zanaabu
    with more yogurt when the jug is empty?
She seems convinced she will die.
    She refuses drugs and treatment and food
        but she seems to be eating my yogurt.

Do you want to take her to be with you?
    She suffers a lot beneath those big white bandages.
Do you want to take her because you know
    it will be too hard for her to live with her tribe,
    now that she follows you?
Or do you want to heal the burns
    and use Zanaabu as a light to her people?

Meanwhile, make me faithful in my small task
    of carrying my one-liter jug of yogurt
    past the ladies who greet me
    to the end of the long corridor
    to Zanaabu's room
May I be your faithful instrument of hope and peace.