Because we were People of No Consequence

baga_attack-buzzingeria-comBecause we were People of No Consequence

For the people of “no consequence” of Baga and elsewehere

 

Because we were People of No Consequence

Neither cartoonists nor gods

ever bothered to choose us

No Holy Book ever extolled us

No Funnies ever besmirched us

Our Plagues were not worthy

of newspapers nor literature.

We had no Tuileries nor Towers

Our “gendarmes” were an international force

only because we were remembered

at appropriate moments

 

We had no heroic squads of firefighters

We had to put out our flames

with our own leaky buckets

from a drying out lake

Yes, the unmentionable

Body of Water of No International Consequence

enjoying  extensive reportage on National Geographic

whose edges were shrinking

and yielded fewer fish

so many of us,

the fortunate ones,

left ten years ago

to wait for the fish to take bait

or be dragged in the nets

elsewhere, in other shores.

 

They, the lucky ones,

picked up and went

on their own sturdy legs

Some may have got caught

in the malevolent winds of history

their patched up sails

unworthy of/unfit for navigation

But, we the stationary ones

stayed there to withstand other Plagues

born in the Laboratories of Power

born in the Halls of Economics and Politics

 

Our bodies now “litter” the streets

un-artfully strewn

for the photographer’s lens to catch

for the satellite’s distant eye to probe

No dignity or privacy accorded to us

whether we be 150 or 2000

a  herd

of People of No Consequence

forever leveling our accusation

to faraway stars.

Pina Piccolo, 18/01/2015

 

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