After the March
POETRY FORMAT, 7 Oct 2013
Antonino Bello – TRANSCEND Media Service
When we arrived at the port of Ancona
A crowd was waiting with torches and banners,
With hugs and kisses. See you! Goodbye!
We’ll meet up again somewhere, sometime!
Then I’m back on my own and I feel for the first time
A great desire to burst into tears.
Tenderness and remorse well up from inside
And a sense of how little we were able to sow,
And how long is the way we still have to go.
Will the seed of non-violence truly take root?
Will it become the approach of the future?
Is it possible to bring about change in the world
Through the simple actions of those without arms?
When the institutions show no signs of acting,
Is it really possible for people on their own
To organise themselves and be
A thorn in the side of those who wield power?
Till when shall the culture of non-violence be second?
Will this enterprise contribute to producing a change?
Why did the media that invaded Somalia
At the service of scenes of death and destruction
Hardly mention the incredible scenes of peace?
In this dreadful war who is wrong, who is right?
As exporters of arms how much are we to blame
For the rabid barbarities being carried out
On the old and young in the land of Bosnia?
Tonight I am too tired to answer those questions,
For now I shall lull myself to sleep
With a hope, an irrepressible hope:
If the poor should want, things will change.
__________________________
Poem written by Tonino upon his return to Italy after the March to Sarajevo on 15 Dec 1992 (translated by G. Blaylock).
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 7 Oct 2013.
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