{"id":50192,"date":"2014-11-24T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=50192"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:30","slug":"burma-tears-that-tell-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/11\/burma-tears-that-tell-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Burma: Tears That Tell Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a hut used as a hiding spot<br \/>\nSat a little boy<br \/>\nWho was crying silently<br \/>\nWith tears rolling down his cheeks.<\/p>\n<p>In the depths of those tears<br \/>\nYou will see hounds, blood-thirsty hounds,<br \/>\nThunderous explosions and sounds of machine-gunfire,<br \/>\nThe hot ashes of an entire village just burnt to the ground,<br \/>\nA mother with her chest heaving with fear-soaked exhaustion,<br \/>\nKaren girls who had just lost their virginity, raped (by marauding<br \/>\ngangs from Tatmadaw or Myanmar&#8217;s Feudal Army),<br \/>\nLegs amputated or blown up by those antipersonnel landmines,<br \/>\nAnd long lines of war fleeing refugees leaving behind homes and<br \/>\neverything there is in their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, ye poor little boy,<br \/>\nCry, Do cry your eyes out<br \/>\nWipe your tears away<br \/>\nAnd get ready to do the work cut out for you.<\/p>\n<p>If you truly love Mother, who became yet just another casualty (of the<br \/>\nBurmese War)<br \/>\nGet yourself an education<br \/>\nThen tell the story about your hamlet long-vanished from the map of Burma<br \/>\nWrite poetic prose about your now-lost mother&#8217;s home where she was<br \/>\nbringing you up<br \/>\nImmortalize those happy festive occasions of your childhood days<br \/>\nBe a source of strength and encouragement for those little Karen girls<br \/>\nwhom you are so fond of<br \/>\nBe of service to your fellow Karen villagers<\/p>\n<p>That &#8230;. That would really delight your deceased mother.<br \/>\nThat would give her the reason to clap her hands hard in greatest satisfaction<\/p>\n<p>________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>Original in Burmese. Translation by TRANSCEND member Dr. Maung Zarni.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a hut used as a hiding spot<br \/>\nSat a little boy<br \/>\nWho was crying silently<br \/>\nWith tears rolling down his cheeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}