CARE

His name was Hassan Gba-Kamara and he posted on my Facebook
“Don’t just love our natural resources, love and care for us too”
I scroll to a picture of a man on his back, knees up in muddy rags
In the gutter of a market street. Yes, a man. The dust flattened
Only by the morning storm. Around him stand armed guards afraid.
He is dying of ebola, a disease with a cure but his country is poor.
He is dying of ebola, without human touch, dignity or farewell.

His country gave the iron… I say gave because no fair price was given…
His country gave the iron in the steel that became the spoon
With which I stir my hot chocolate. The chocolate came from the cocoa
That came from his motherland as did the band of gold around my finger.
Gold that says you love me that was pulled from the bowels of his earth,
Till cyanide blocked the lungs and mercury ran and made his children blind.
Blindness, a disease of a world that failed to love and to care for him too.