UNDER, Marie

Denunciation

I cry aloud with all my people's mouths,

our land is smitten by a plague of fear and lead,

our land is shadowed by the gallows tree

our land a common graveyard, huge with dead.

Who'll come to help? Right here, at present, now!

Because the patient's weak, has lost his hold.

But, like the call of birds, my shouting fades

in emptiness: the world is arrogant and cold.

The sighing of the old, the baby's cry —

do they all run to sand, illusion, fail?

Men, women groan like wounded deer

to those in power all this is just a fairy-tale.

Dark is the world's eye, its ear is deaf,

the powerful lost in madness or stupidity.

Compassion's only felt by those whom suffering breaks,

and sufferers alone have hearts like you and me