'Ashes' - Clara Gray-Stallings...for the children of Darfur.

As a project for her class at Animas High School in Durango, Clara Gray-Stallings wrote this stark, haunting song, for the children of Darfur. Clara is fifteen years old.

*used by permission. All rights reserved. (©BMI 2011, Clara Gray-Stallings)

We may sometimes be surprised how world events affect our children, and in what form their compassion may be expressed - for things we all barely understand.

This is entirely new. Clara wrote and performed all the instrumentation and vocals. Her father helped engineer the recording, a classmate performed the rap section. It has been recommended that Clara consider performing this for a video. If that becomes available, we will share it with you here.

Please enlighten yourself to the conflict in Darfur, by visiting Amnesty International's USA website.

Ashes

My ebony skin is being revealed by the sun

I’ve been on my feet all night getting ready to run

Already been burned, lived through the bullets of a gun

And the knots I tied for life have all been undone

Look at what you did; now the world’s unglued

And you’re treating me like the crushed bug on your shoe

But bugs have six legs – I have two

And someday I’ll stand up on these legs, level to you

The world that we want is so far away

And my memories haunt every step that I take

Please tell me this is just a dream

People never turned into killing machines

I’m gonna wake up, or so I’d like to think

But I know, deep down, it’s really happening

Take me back to the town that you burned to the ground

With my family in it – now I’ll never hear the sound

Of my little sister laughing with a friend that she found

She’s with my parents who are scattered on the ground

All the people I knew turned into ashes and chunks

And I’m not brave enough to clean them up

If I want to cross the street, I’ll swim through bodies and blood

That wouldn’t be there if the world had love

Please tell me this is just a dream

People never turned into killing machines

I’m gonna wake up, or so I’d like to think

But I know, deep down, it’s really happening

Mom, Dad, why’d you have to leave?

I’m alone with a baby and I’m only fifteen

Give me a sign that you’re here like I need

I won’t let your ashes blow away in the breeze

They call the blacks people in the USA

I pray that’ll happen in Sudan someday

They say, “Genocide is to exterminate.”

So why is there torture? Why is there rape?

Answer this; tell me what kind of coward

Kills kids who can be so easily overpowered?

I wouldn’t call you human with your soul so sour

Do you know the pain your victims felt their last hour?

You don’t even know mine, and I’m still alive

But I think I’m doing worse than the people who died

Because I’m in misery, trying to find a place to hide

And the opportunity for justice hasn’t arrived

See this little baby that I have to feed?

He’s the product of a painful memory

I’m raising a creature that’s half Janjaweed

He stole my childhood – and he’s too young to see

Please tell me this is just a dream

People never turned into killing machines

I’m gonna wake up, or so I’d like to think

But I know, deep down, it’s really happening

Mom, Dad, why’d you have to leave?

I’m alone with a baby and I’m only fifteen

Give me a sign that you’re here like I need

I won’t let your ashes blow away in the breeze

Mom, Dad, why’d you have to leave?

I’m alone with a baby and I’m only fifteen

Give me a sign that you’re here like I need

I won’t let your ashes blow away in the breeze

The world that we want is so far away

The world that we want is so far away

‘Ashes’

Clara Gray-Stallings Copyright 2011 BMI 2011

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