From their heavy high-backed chairs whose legs rarely collapse,
they point their finger and yell, foaming at the mouth,
that the aliens won’t set foot on our land
Or they just turn their face somewhere else,
for not to see those lives whose seats now rock and roll
absorbed in praying that the water won’t seep into the cracks
or that death may come quick, at least
And I wonder,
isn’t it simply human, to feel your heart get as heavy as a boulder,
at the idea of a child precipitating to the bottom of the abyss,
their eyes shutting down (forever)
on the sight of a throbbing light getting distant, more and more?
It’s for to prevent our pockets from getting lighter,
it’s what they proclaim from their high-backed chairs
And I wonder,
who can forget their humanity to the point of weighing on a scale
the smile of a child who finds a new hope ahead
against a handful of gold?
And we come first, they say,
but that to please us and make us feel privileged is just a side-effect,
for they rather classify humans like trading cards in a deck,
according to their amount,
and therefore
those which are the rarest, in lower number, are the most valuable,
while those which are in the higher number count less and less,
But let me tell you,
already that no trading card is exactly the same of another, to begin with,
and that no trading card embodies the divine power and potential
to think, to imagine, to love, to create, to save the world
They will keep the gates closed,
it’s what they promise and do, from their comfortable seats,
turning their conscience away from the sinking ships
And I can’t help wondering,
is their memory so feeble
to forget of our roots
who often arose from the beloved ground
and, leaving behind tracks of tear-filled pools,
roamed far away, across the sea, knocking at foreign cities’ gates
to find a place they could call “Future”?
It’s for our safety, for that child, one day,
could even prove to have always had a werewolf,
waiting, dormant, within:
that’s what they say
But I ask you,
should we really be surprised
if a kitty rudely pushed away
may end hissing and scratching like a lion?
Oh, don’t they say that dogs bark out of fear?
But there’s nothing to fear, in what you got to know and understand,
and that’s the truth shaming us all:
that’s the secret to build bridges to join both the sides
And, honestly, I rather feel way more estranged, already now,
lost amongst a mass rocking back and forth like a furious sea,
where to love is too often mistaken for to possess,
where a guiltless inherited difference is more feared than the ugliest crime freshly adopted,
where too many have buried their hearts some place now forgotten
and growl like werewolves to anyone around,
protecting a territory,
a tiny plot of ground they call their own and God-given
(oh, where is it, the signed contract?!),
a neighbourhood which shrinks and shrinks,
until, one day, it will be barely large enough to hold its growling owner
And it’s right in this land, which I still love and call “motherland” and “home”,
in this land where werewolves seem to grow and grow in number,
that I sometimes feel like a refugee, a person out-of-place…
and I wonder what will happen, when they will smell me well enough
and will see there’s no wolf in me
They say they do it in my name, too
And my soul is filled with horror,
at the idea someone else may believe it,
and that’s how I need to let my voice be heard
And it’s because of this land, for the sake of this land,
or, better,
of my roots, of ours, which are deep enough, if we have patience to search,
to go back to when we all used to live on the trees,
that I will let my reasoning dig more profoundly
than my reptilian fear could ever do,
and I will remind myself that it’s just the howling of the werewolves, to be greater,
rather than their number,
so I will place microphones and amplifiers
before the subtly moving lips of those like me
who don’t need to shout and kick for they don’t live in fear,
and I will let their whispers become loud verses and songs
praising the mind-opening differences
in the palette of the painter,
in the flowers of the garden,
in the infinite shades of melanin in the skin of all those children
who all smile the same
(c) Daniele Bergamini @danbergam
http://danbergamondo.com
Picture: http://pixabay.com
Since 2018, the Italian government has been applying a new “strategy” about refugees from troubled countries, which shrinks the chances for them to find home in Italy, and to the point of keeping the docks and harbours closed, for those who try to find a better fate by facing perillous travels by sea… and I, all this, I consider it morally unacceptable and just inhuman.
Is there a problem at a bigger level?
Yes, as other European countries, for the sake political convenience of those governments, equally pretend to call themselves out and to discharge the problem on my country, which is more easily accessible by sea.
But the actual Italian government is doing this, and I just can’t stay quiet.
They think they’re doing it with the support of all the Italians: well, not mine.
And I’m not alone.
Daniele
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