Thursday 28 July 2016

VANITY : BIRAGO DIOP

If we tell, gently, gently
All that we shall one day have to tell,
Who then will hear our voices without laughter,
Sad complaining voices of beggars
Who indeed will hear them without laughter?

If we cry roughly of our torments
 Ever increasing from the start of things
What eyes will watch our large mouths
Shaped by the laughter of big children
What eyes will watch our large mouth?

What hearts will listen to our clamoring?
What ear to our pitiful anger
Which grows in us like a tumor
In the black depth of our plaintive throats?

When our Dead comes with their Dead
 When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices;
Just as our ears were deaf
To their cries, to their wild appeals
Just as our ears were deaf

They have left on the earth their cries,
In the air, on the water,
where they have traced their signs for us blind deaf and unworthy Sons
Who see nothing of what they have made
 In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs

And since we did not understand the dead
Since we have never listened to their cries
 If we weep, gently, gently
 If we cry roughly to our torments
What heart will listen to our clamoring,
What ear to our sobbing hearts?

 THEMES

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VANITY : BIRAGO DIOP

If we tell, gently, gently All that we shall one day have to tell, Who then will hear our voices without laughter, Sad complaining voices...