Paris has seen blood before.
Lost her innocence way back when.
The French Revolution. Napoleon.
The empires. Two world wars. And,
then some. a lot of blood has
flowed with the Seine before 2015.
the pendulum of the French clock
cracked back to normal even after
Lady Diana died in their tunnel.
This jihadist attack however has
smattered our faces with blood.
The whole world is bleeding today.
Kokhono Sydney, Kokhono Peshawar,
Ebaar Paris, Next Somewhere,
next to innocents and bystanders.
People die when they are meant to,
not a day too soon, not a day too late.
Our solidarity marches are not going
to stop death which marches to its
own relentless rhythm using cancer,
using jihadists, using points of view.
All that the solidarity marches can do
is to comfort those who haven't yet died,
make us a little less afraid of dying,
make us forget that the end game is death
and in between is life in which we all play.
For each ounce of optimism lost with
each ounce of blood that was spilled,
the solidarity march filters pessimism
and makes us think we are safe, there
are no monsters under our bed, there
are only angels in the wings, only
well fed children all over the world,
clean water and vaccines that can
stamp out evil as soon as its detected.
the point of the solidarity march could be,
we did not die, we are still alive, so
we have to work to make someone's
next day a little bit better if possible.
So that we leave behind more than blood.
No comments:
Post a Comment