By Is it a choice?
One window for the twelve imprisoned
we peep in, and we see
a poet, and three writers, and two playwrights
an actor, a songwriter, a comedian
a lawyer, an art critic, a translator
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
a Journalist
These are their roles.
“This was their choice.”
Is it a choice — to speak?
A geyser that erupts?
A hand that stretches from
under the rubble?
Burst the bubble
and breath.
We think there is a window,
we believe,
a window is the only way to keep
the hope that dawn will break one day,
but why can’t we,
why can’t we break it?
Who needs the window even more —
those twelve or us?
Is it a window or a looking glass?
Why don’t we recognise them?
Have they changed in 22 years
there, where you change for good
in just one day?
We read aloud the open
letter of their names:
Dawit Isaak
Amanuel Asrat
Said Idris ‘Abu Are’
Temesegen Ghebreyesuy
Medhanie Haile
Fessehaye ‘Joshua’ Yohannes
Yousif Mohammed Ali
Seyoum Tsehaye
Dawit Habtemichael
Said Abdelkadir
Sahle ‘Wedi-ltay’ Tsefezab
Matheos Habteab
We read the open letter
of their courageous hearts
refusing to submit it to the silence,
refusing to submit their dreams to silence
refusing to be the silence of the voiceless.
When the doors eventually open
how many will come out?
_______________________________________
Belarusian Poet, translator and activist Hanna Komar wrote this poem in solidarity with the 12 Eritrean journalists and writers who forcibly disappeared in 2001.
