Memorial/Immemorial
V. Varsam
You will have forgotten me
you will
you can’t disagree
because there is no you
there is no I
only a number
hard to remember
and shifting every day
of people rising and falling over mountains, valleys and flatlands
across rivers, seas and oceans
and another number, unknowable, vast yet no less significant
the readers of our heaving, shivering numbers
the long-distance viewers in front of small screens
with little clippings and short statements full of peremptory knowledge
watching
not us, but the fate of numbers
from regions probably unheard of for most
and never to be heard again
turning already into marks in dusty books
that keep track of our kind
of numbers
so many all the time, different every year
appearing briefly, and disappearing even more quickly
how
it seems long to you
every day, every hour the reports numb you further
while
every minute, every second we accept the pain more
no more
infinite futures of generations
no more
familiar footholds of the past to lean against on
slow evenings
no more
sweet nostalgia of homecoming
only a bitter, heavy stench of burning
flesh of humans and animals, food and fabrics, bricks and wiring
and all those little luxuries you and I daily prostitute our time for
in anticipation of the pleasure they will keep giving us
if time keeps going on
a smooth train running, a ship sailing on calm, translucent seas
suddenly usurped, overturned, interrupted
a funeral pyre in your living room
I walk out alive and that is all
I, no longer named but hidden in
a number, constantly moving
Who are these enemies that do the burning, the killing, the kidnapping?
(Yes, of course, I know, you know)
But what kind of war memories will he and she and they have
those faceless soldiers
the enemy
will sit at home one day, or in a bar, warm and cosy, and say
what they did in the war
or maybe keep it secret?
Can it ever not be a part of them?
I know it is part of me
a big, gaping hole
spewing
poisonous and painful fumes
to breathe
day and night and again
day and night
it’s cold and hot
too hot and too cold
there is a constant moving
laboring up and down hills and fields
hiding in forests and river banks
into places of nature we too had ignored
but now cannot learn to love fast enough
in return
we give to the earth
our friends, old enemies, children, neighbours, ourselves
by force we make her fertile with our blood
and she is indifferent to it all,
animate, inanimate, organic, inorganic
all extinguishable,
I am no different from you or any other number
one more,
one less
years of antagonism, hatred or struggle for peace
hundreds or thousands of years of presence
before
(call it)
a heavy broom of soldiers
a rainy season of bombs
a scorching fire
we will all be gone
a clean sweep
marks our passage.