(for Safet Zec)
What can you show
but my hands covering my face?
Look at me
How will I rebuild?
In a wheelbarrow
pushing along the child
bleeding, then the old man,
How will we heal?
The old shoes,
who will wear them now?
Who will wash the peppers
at the sink?
They have called up the devil
and he is speaking
English, German-What do I know?
-languages I do not understand
Hold me
while we stand like this
in the rubble where our house was
hold me
We are made of bread,
weren’t we built for freedom?
The best country in the world, if you ask,
was our Yugoslavia that was
And didn’t we as a city
show the world how Jews, Arabs,
Christians, laborers and poets
could sit down together, there was
room at the table for all?
The NATO soldiers dressed as forests
have fresh round faces, they take
pictures of each other before our mosque
they carry rifles and speak in English,
German, American-what do I know?-
languages I do not understand.
JANINE POMMY VEGA, Sarajevo, Bosnia, October 2003. She can be reached at: janine@counterpunch.org
