Without the right words -

I leaf through the paper every morning,
same news, different places, same pain.
I am rarely moved.

When I saw this photograph (attached to email with link),
I did a double take.
No, this wasn't a made Hollywood movie shoot,
this was real reality.

How can anyone inflict this pain, even on their enemy?
Wasn't this enemy one day your neighbor? Your friend?
Your co-worker? Your human brother?

What is all this ethnic/religious warfare for?
Isn't easier to live in peace?

Just look at this photograph,
the exodus - one on top of another.
Nothing to eat but dirt and a bullet to relieve the pain.

No, this is not a poem that will solve anything,
I can't write anything that hasn't been already said,
by those in power, by those actually living this atrocity.

What can I do damn it?
I am too naive.




From the NTIMES, Thursday, February 27, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/middleeast/syrian-forces-claim-major-blow-against-rebels.html?emc=eta1

Translation: Her name was Epiphany

Her name was Epiphany

 

Every day the body’s size dwindles

Little by little its functions cease,

What once was important is now trivial.

 

 Today I don’t need this mass of flesh and bones,

Not even the extremities to walk and eat.

Today I nurture the body with tubes and needles.

The ocular muscle knows how to react.

 

Fewer thoughts appear frequently with the weight of age,

The fever is the last natural, remaining, warmth,

Pain is the token to this life.

I never lacked love and love I shared.  

 

Uncomfortable, the cemetery waits to swallow this wrinkled skin,

 To dissolve the physical state of my being.

 I hope you find the epiphany to what life’s worth,

 Before the wind blows the lit wick of the heart.

 

Written by Dirk Wojtczack on November 21, 2013, and translated by himself on February 5, 2014.

 

Ella se llamaba Epifanía

 

Cada día el cuerpo se va apagando,

Poco por poco sus funciones cesan,

Lo que antes era importante se ha convertido en trivialidades.

 

Hoy no necesito toda esa masa de carne y hueso,

Ni todas las extremidades para caminar o comer.

Hoy alimento el cuerpo con tubos y agujas.

El músculo ocular sabe reaccionar.

 

Los pensamientos menos aparecen con el peso de la edad,

La fiebre es el último calentamiento natural,

El dolor es el peaje de esta vida.

Nunca carecí amor y amor repartí.

 

Incómodo, el cementerio espera tragar esta piel arrugada,

Para disolver el estado físico de mi ser.

Quiero que tengas la epifanía sobre lo que vale la vida,

Antes que el viento sople la mecha prendida del corazón.

 

Dirk Wojtczack Vecilla, veintiuno de noviembre, dos mil trece.