#poem, Lamentations No.2 «Places»

LAMENTATIONS No.2
“PLACES”
(18/08/2024, Izmir, Turkey)

Some folk live lives in black and white
on rocky shores that rise towards rubbish heaps,
In the ocean they discard most everything,
their creeks are putrid, sick and sour,
they fish to live from day to day,
they’ve never seen colours or smelled a flower.

Others live in the stifling heat of valleys
and watch their cattle roam,
they build a fence to separate the land where crops are grown.
They commune with nature and in this life well isolated,
they’re thankful for their sacred, blessed soil,
knowing no one has the right to desecrate it,
they labour and they toil.

Some live in megacities where not a tree remains,
among steel structures tall and proud,
counting riches, counting gains.
They feast in fancy restaurants,
own limousines and jets,
they really think they own the land,
and they lecture us on how to save it,
so they can have it all for them,
and leave us hungry, poor and waiting.

Some live in tree-less deserts,
some in inhabitable slums,
some in old, forgotten villages far from the cities
in areas quite depopulated,
where one by one alone they die,
Some live in the mean streets of the boiling inner city
where they daily risk their lives,
struggling to survive,
fighting to stay alive
to suffer one more rainy day
in places made of flesh and bone,
of illusions, salt and clay.

NOTA BENE: At the risk of sounding naive, I will say that the land belongs to all. However, because of the hardness of men’s hearts, hierarchies were established that separated the land into ours and theirs. Kings, pharaohs, sultans, popes and governments took the best parts, made us work to upkeep them and left us whatever was left behind that they did not want and charged us for it. Mankind has forgotten that they are made in the image of the God that created them and that we do not have to live subjugated by anyone. The meek will inherit the Earth, Jesus said. But where are the meek? Everyone has grown and oriented themselves towards some kind of evil, lamentably.