In the face of the murders of children while they are still in the nursery, the war crimes against civilians, the massacres committed by Israel’s extreme right-wing government against Palestinians, John Donne’s immortal poem comes to mind:
“Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.”
The full text of the lines of this prose poem was translated into Portuguese by our unforgettable writer, communist thinker José Carlos Ruy.
Everyone knows that Hemingway had the sensibility to make the poem famous and recent by naming his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. So I, lost for not knowing how to write about the massacre in Gaza, thought it best to remember poets who have written about the misfortune of the Palestinian people. The immense poet Alberto da Cunha Melo wrote:
“Christmas
Far from Olympus, a god was born
purple, screaming, like humans,
a god without banners was born,
for the lost and the insane;
he had nothing of the Hellenic god
the boy god on the hay,
he was a toy god
in the backyard of the Roman Empire,
he was the god of the frightened people,
a god without luck, Palestinian,
and homeless since he was a boy”.
The great poet Gustavo Felicissimo published these days:
“Fall down, Lord, among us
Fall down, Lord, among us,
so that we may show you
Your son’s name printed
on the barrels of powerful rifles
and in ancient books that unite
and separate men.
Stay among us, Lord,
so that we can show you
that frail David
mounted on powerful helicopters
and battle tanks
subduing his brother.
Stay among us, Lord,
so that we can show you
the desperate cry of the child
over the rubble that buried his parentes
making her one of millions
forgotten orphans of all wars.
Stay among us, Lord,
so that we can show you
the silos and warehouses full
of corn and soya, wheat and sugar
while half of humanity doesn’t sleep
for fear of not eating.
(Inspired by Josué de Castro)
Stay among us, Lord,
so that we can finally see You
with these eyes that the earth will eat
and that You may also remind us
that the vine is dry, dirty and crooked:
that this valley is made of tears”
But I’m not a poet, and I’d love to be one, so I’ll use a passage from my next novel, which is still unpublished:
In childhood, what is nobody? It’s not a child buried in the mud of a little house that fell on him, it’s not his mouth open in search of air, nor is it a dead boy, because they still refer to him as a boy. They ask him his name, they want to know the circumstances of his buried death. This child is still someone, despite his misfortune. But “nobody” is not to exist. This is the same as being suffocated in anguish, in permanent anguish, whose perspective is anguish. A long road in the dark with no direction or guidance. Does the devil laugh?
So I return to John Donne:
“Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.”
Today, the bell tolls for the Palestinians. The bell tolls for all of us.
The post For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaza? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Urariano Mota.
Urariano Mota | Radio Free (2023-11-21T06:02:21+00:00) For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaza?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2023/11/21/for-whom-the-bell-tolls-gaza/
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