Arts for the 21st Century

People are not flowers

English translation from French Creole


I don’t know why

my neighbor’s son’s kite

got stuck on an almond tree

why his little corpse is lying

flat on the concrete

eyes open


I don’t understand

why the rain never stops

playing silly games with deluges;

why rivers spit up death

on people’s roofs


Nobody remembers

the color of the car that clipped

five young kids

in Carrefour Marin

one Wednesday morning


I am not eager to know

why

don’t tell me life and death walk abreast

I am not eager to know

of any compromise between ugliness

and stars in the sky


Philosophers, please let me be.

All I know is that

the sea is not more beautiful

more birds are not flying in the sky

just because a fierce devil called corona

is spreading despair.


Don’t tell me any lies

don’t try to blow my mind

I don’t wish to understand

why the earth is spinning until our heads bleed


All I know

young boys do not grow in just one morning

little girls do not flourish from the rain

No one can say I lie

when I say

People are not flowers