By Sam Gonson, high school senior

As one who considers hot showers wasteful,

She looks upon the river

with respect,

And knows the meaning of “life-giving.”

Her children gaze at the Malawi sun

with a rustic splendor

her eyes once knew.

She remembers a time

when she too,

lived to play on the banks,

under the vigilant watch

of her own mother.

She stands in retrospective wonder

of the maternal

beast that raised her.

Her feet cradled

by the same waves

she felt years ago.

As her ears open

and her past expands,

A liquid voice rises

from her river.

It seeps into her memory

as her mother whispers:

“I am with you.”

A high school senior wrote this poem. He was inspired by a returned Volunteer's presentation on Malawi to his Peace Club. This poem was presented at a school poetry slam and printed here with permission from the author.