Respect
In a time of upheaval,
Nothing can be saved.
My kind left behind the plates where they lay,
Took only one piece of cutlery – just a knife,
And abandoned their linen
To the moths next door.
They locked down the doors,
Boarded up the panes,
Dropped jewelery into wells
And fled into the night.
They stayed off the roads
Made for the salt spray.
And spoke the Young Turks talk,
In order to blend in with the crowds –
Crowds who had come down to see
How red the earth’s tears had turned.
Death then took them all the way
To the promised land
Where the other’s plates were now their’s to claim.
But nothing felt right.
After 86 years
Of living with a pricked conscience – hidden beneath eucalyptus,
This generational itch was resolved.
By chance,
A trip back from the other side
Found the board
Where it was placed
And the plates
Where they were laid.
When queried about this,
The Gorukle replied –
We thought you’d return.
We left everything as it was,
For you were our friends, our brothers, our sisters,
And these things were not ours to take.
It never dawned on the Christians
Who reached the promised land
To extend such a courtesy.
The Christians deserved all that was abandoned
And left nothing for the Moslems to return to –
Moving into their homes almost immediately.
And yet, to this day
My kind
Claim to be the better human beings.
Now why is that again?
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008