A small child in Delhi watches at a candlelight vigil for peace between India and Pakistan. His young eyes are focused and aware, showing a consciousness of new understanding. Epiphany comes from the Greek 'phaino', 'to show'. Magi, seeking a King, were shown a young child, who would be known as the Prince of Peace.
In the meningitis ward the Irish nuns never leave them.
Sometimes they work for sixteen hours at a stretch.
When this young boy arrived with his dying mother in a basket
nobody had time to hear his story. There was no room.
Every story that has ever been told already whispers here.
So he told nobody about the first deaths; his father and uncle,
and then living in the forest and the sounds of soldiers and animals.
So he told nobody about his brothers and what happened to their hands
and the rape of his sister and the four months of running between
one slaughter and another. So he told nobody about how they
gave up words, signalled in silence, eating rain.
Now, in the meningitis ward, he makes up a story as his
mother dies, he places a prayer in the singing, he holds
her hands in the music and she is dead now.
He covers the body on the mat with leaves to hide the smell
that has been in his head for months.
He tells an Irish nun that he will stay here
with these people he does not know.
'I can work. I can do singing. I can do peace.'