To Those Born Later (about the paradox of fighting hard for a new world, then being so changed from the fight that you are unable to live in it)
on REM Zoe Lara (in India) (India), 19/Aug/2009 18:59, 34 days ago
ITruly, I live in dark times!The guileless word is folly. A smooth foreheadSuggests insensitivity. The man who laughsHas simply not yet hadThe terrible news.What kind of times are they, whenA talk about trees is almost a crimeBecause it implies silence about so many horrors?That man there calmly crossing the streetIs already perhaps beyond the reach of his friendsWho are in need?It is true I still earn my keepBut, believe me, that is only an accident. NothingI do gives me the right to eat my fill.By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I am lost.)They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it!But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eatFrom the starving, andMy glass of water belongs to one dying of thirst?And yet I eat and drink.I would also like to be wise.In the old books it says what wisdom is:To shun the strife of the world and to live outYour brief time without fearAlso to get along without violenceTo return good for evilNot to fulfill your desires but to forget themIs accounted wise.All this I cannot do:Truly, I live in dark times.III came to the cities in a time of disorderWhen hunger reigned there.I came among men in a time of revoltAnd I rebelled with them.So passed my timeWhich had been given to me on earth.My food I ate between battlesTo sleep I lay down among murderersLove I practised carelesslyAnd nature I looked at without patience.So passed my timeWhich had been given to me on earth.All roads led into the mire in my time.My tongue betrayed me to the butchers.There was little I could do. But those in powerSat safer without me: that was my hope.So passed my timeWhich had been given to me on earth.Our forces were slight. Our goalLay far in the distanceIt was clearly visible, though I myselfWas unlikely to reach it.So passed my timeWhich had been given to me on earth.IIIYou who will emerge from the floodIn which we have gone underRememberWhen you speak of our failingsThe dark time tooWhich you have escaped.-Brecht