A poem by our daughter...

Some context...

Our daughter, Mady, had a history project.

She interviewed her grandparents and wrote a report about their experience in Cambodia, fleeing the Khmer Rouge and ultimately settling in Utica, NY in 1981.

She also wrote this beautiful poem, encapsulating all that she has come to know and appreciate about her family.

It brings me to tears.

Mady Waire

Mr. Jackson

AP World History

May 26, 2023

History Project

Pol Pot

1975 Cambodia,

I transformed the country in

unimaginable ways.

The population forced to move

to the countryside,

Forced to slave continuously,

Forced away from loved ones,

Forced to submit to my goals

of terror,

My Marxist ways.

Everyone losing individuality,?

Losing their country,

Their lives.

My beautiful Marxist ways.

Khmer

Soldiers

A wave of violence came with

our arrival,

The starvation, the murders,

the torture we inflicted.

Cambodian buildings seized,

Cambodian homes burned,?

Marching in lines with our

guns to their backs and heads,?

Two million lives taken.

Civilians

Our schools transformed into

prisons,

As we were forced to flee

through the trees,?

Forced to answer the mens’

questions,?

Asking;

Are you educated?

Religious?

Do you wear glasses?

Answer yes, and you were shot.

Answer no, but follow what

they order,

Follow the marching men to the

fields.

Two million of our bloodlines

ended.

Fields

The scrapes of their shovels

tear away at my skin,

As heaps of bodies are thrown

into the pits they make.?

A mother laying on another,?

A brother lying next to his

sister,

Fathers lined shoulder to

shoulder.

Dehumanized as their bodies

deteriorate within me.

Within the field they put the

last of their lives into.?

Their labor, the last of their

strength.?

Given to me, as they lay

together.

Synath

Synath Buth is my

grandfather’s name.

He told me,

I would go farther and farther

everyday,?

Trying to find food for our

family.

He said if you get caught they

kill you.?

Cautious I walked and patient

I spoke, he said.

Days spent slaving in the

fields,?

Not always having the skills

required.

But a goal needed to be met.

Fearing for life,

Starved,

Exhausted,

Dehumanized.

I watched a man get dragged,

he said.?

Another, once more.

Piles upon piles of bodies I

watched,?

Piles upon piles of dirt I

shoveled.

Shots on shots he heard,?

And the screams that followed.

Saram?

Saram Sin is my grandmother’s

name.

Cautious I walked and patient

I spoke, she said.

My body resembling a corpse,

hair past my fingertips, she told me,

My body without energy,

No power,

No strength,

A body without a home,?

A body carrying another.

Together

We met in the mist.?

Cautious we walked and patient

we spoke, they said.

Carefully we pressed our feet

onto the dirt path,

Carved by a hundred feet that

walked before us,?

We had to watch for bombs, he

said.?

Holding a child in my arms, my

stomach growled, she said.

As we ached for home,?

Ached for family,

Ached for the safety ripped

from our hands,?

Ached from the sores that

worsened.

Heart, aching with fear,

Aching for my thirty-six loved

ones,

Aching for my father, he said.?

Cautious we walked and patient

we spoke.

Patient we watched,?

Watched the men pace by,?

Watched the women fly by,?

Watched the children scream as

their parents were dragged away.

We covered his eyes but kept

walking.

Breeze

I heard them screaming through

my breath

The children ripped away from

their mothers

The wives watching their

husbands get dragged away

I felt the flames burn my skin

Homes, buildings, hospitals

destroyed.

A country destroyed.?

I felt their sorrows as I felt

the Khmer bullets rip through me?

Speeding towards a man,

Caught searching for food or

seeking refuge.

Speeding towards a woman,

crawling on the field’s floor.

Speeding towards a child,

Shot by another one their age.

Mother

Ta hushed my screams but kept

walking.?

I birthed a daughter, birthed

your mother,

On a day that we do not know,

One which we celebrate twice a

year,

A day in late November,

Another in the start of

December.?

Your mother’s birthday unknown.

Together

We kept walking,

Kept walking until we found

refuge.??

Four-hundred-seventy miles we

walked,

Walked to be fenced in for two

years in a new place,

Where I had another boy, had

your uncle, she said,

Where we had hoped our three

children would be granted as promised;

Life

Liberty

Happiness.

Home

We were to be resettled.?

Approaching the gates now,?

Cautious we walked and patient

we spoke.

Standing in the airport,?

Holding three small bags and

three small children,?

Ta turned to Yeay as she

turned to face him

He spoke,

“We are born again.”

Anew

My dad’s car sounds through

their driveway.

It is early June when we

arrive in Utica.?

Yeay and Ta rushing out the

door to greet us.

An American flag attached to

the house above the driveway blows in the wind.?

News that more family will be

coming over for dinner tonight,

As we gather around the living

room.

Yeay and Ta retelling their

story once more,

A tear falling down my

mother’s cheek.?

The sympathy sitting in my

father’s eyes,?

How grateful I know he feels,

For that November day of 1981,

A woman and a man standing in

a New York airport,

Three children gathered around

them.?

Like the three sitting on the

couch now,

Me, and my brothers alike.?

Ever so grateful for the

efforts taken by our grandparents.?

Ever so grateful for their

strength.?