Did you hear the interview with singer/songwriter Sam Baker on Fresh Air today? Sam was on a train heading to Machu Picchu in 1986 when he and fellow passengers became the target of a terrorist act. His body was torn apart by a bomb planted by the Peruvian terrorist group Shining Path. As his body healed, the melodies and lyrics began streaming in.
migrants
it is not that far
the coyote said walk north one day
across la cabeza prieta
keep walking to interstate eight
they walked that day
the next
the next
the water ran out
one by one
they looked like dried leaves
scattered in the sun
oh dear ones
we are lost
it is so far away
from the low lands of veracruz
to the desert north of sonora
where they strung out in ones and twos
they got twelve lines in a midwestern paper
on the pages with the ads for shoes
fourteen men got lost in the desert
they were migrants they got
twelve lines of news