Pueta José Maria LOPERA
.
PEACE
How terrible is the anger of the men that
kill,
of the volcano that inside melts down
feelings,
’til souls break in a crater of
extermination!
What storm, what thunder, what flash of
violence
seeks to kill or mutilate those who are
innocent!
Where is the light of the smile,
placed
by God into mankind that it may
love?
And where is it, the light of
awakening,
that shines between men when they live in
harmony?
Where is it, Peace? Tell me. Where
is it?
Time itself cries complaint in the
seconds when
a shell delays even the terror that you
feel,
and when it goes off, in its smoke you
can breathe
the pleasure to feel life amongst the
dead.
I knew as a child the smell of my
blood
in the horrible panic of the whistling
bomb.
I overflowed with the hurt of my wounded
flesh,
the lacerating fear that time does not
cancel,
and the scream that I bear that curses
war.
And you who speak so much of
God,
who invoke Him so often against the
rest,
who worship Him so much in his
justice,
what rubbish soul do you keep Him in?
Tell me. What race, what land, remains
for you to defend or else
to attack
with fangs of fratricidal hate
if your fanaticism isn’t
worth
the dying breath of a single
child?
If God is the LIGHT of life in
HARNONY
And an eternal source of a LIBERTY
sublime…
Where is the PEACE that he put in your
spirit?
With what seed of hate did you sow
it,
that yields blades of death from the
wounded earth?
© Copyright José María
LOPERA
Translation: Frank
Sanders
