To Apolitical Intellectuals
POETRY FORMAT, 28 Oct 2024
Otto René Castillo – TRANSCEND Media Service
Otto René Castillo (1934–1967), whose beautiful poems were inspired by the El Salvadoran guerrilla poet Roque Dalton (1935–1975), wrote this elegy two years before he was murdered alongside his comrades.
I
One day,
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the humblest
of our people.
They will be asked
what they did
when
their homeland was slowly
extinguished,
like a sweet fire,
small and alone.
No one will ask them
about their suits,
or about their long
siestas
after lunch,
or about their sterile
battles with nothingness,
nor about
their ontological
way
of making money.
They won’t be questioned
about Greek mythology,
or about the self-disgust they felt
when someone, deep down,
accepted the fate of dying a coward’s death.
They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of a total lie.
II
On that day
the humble people will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
yet, every day, brought them
their bread and milk,
their eggs and tortillas,
those who mended their clothes,
who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and tended their gardens,
who worked for them,
and they’ll ask:
‘What did you do when the poor
suffered, when the tenderness and life
was snuffed out of them?’.
III
Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will have nothing to say.
A vulture of silence
will devour your insides.
Your own misery
will gnaw at your soul.
And you will be silent,
ashamed of yourselves.
Tags: Activism, Direct Action, Elites, Poetry, Politics
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Oct 2024.
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