WE ARE THE SADDEST PEOPLE, WE ARE THE TRAGIC PEOPLE – A POEM FOR SYRIA
We are the sad people
We are the tragic people
We carry our losses and stare
Our losses carry us and stare back
.
We are the sad people
The very sad people
With holes in our hearts
And holes in our memories
We walk into the valley of death
Into the hollow land
Hollowed out of our deathless ruin
.
We are the forgotten sad
Sad but without hearts
For our hearts
Have been given trophies
To a world without hearts
To help it shed a tear or two
Before, bright eyed,
It treads harshly on our severed hearts.
.
Between the heart and its pity
Between compassion and its mercy
Between the love and its tenderness
Between consciousness and its feelings
Falls the axe then it falls again
.
Between the cry and its destination
Between the tear and its grace
Between the tragedy and its catharsis
Between the cross and its redemption
Falls the axe then it falls again
.
Between pain and its healing
Between life and its salvation
Between despair and hope
Between the dark and the invocation of light
Between the prayer and its God
Strikes the axe and shrikes again
.
We are the sad the saddest people
We are the tragic people
The people of Aeschylus and Sophocles
The people forced into the valley of death
The people pushed into the valley of tears
The people awaiting the axe
To fall then fall again.
alisariram 