Small Voices

John Lennon was born in Liverpool on the 9th October 1940 during an air raid -( world war II)
- these poems are dedicated to his memory

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SMALL VOICES

1. Haidar (Do they imagine?)



I was but a youth of sixteen years
when Josef Stalin sent my people into exile
Half a million tartars deported
on the long, long journey
Two hundred thousand died
falling by the way side
in helpless abandon

In my dear family
only I survived
and then when I
was already an old man
I returned to my home in Crimea
But the houses I grew up in
were gone or taken over
by many poor families
who had themselves been exiled
and carelessly deported
from somewhere else!

Sometimes I ask myself
if the rulers and great deciders
ever look down from their palaces
into the broken hearts of men
Do the lucky ever look
out of their dream?
And if they do
do they imagine
they are free?





Endymion 2007

source
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D1162410-FD5F-4A07-B66D-D798379863D0.htm