Thursday, July 16, 2015

No Tomatoes (A Poem Out of Lima on Thievery)

 Thievery in Surquillo, a district of Lima, Peru!

Other day, Armando
Discreetly, quietly came over to eat spaghetti
Put the small leave of tomatoes to the side of his dish
Something his mind or stomach insists on.
A leafy bedding on the side of the plate…
A thieves put a gun to his head, stole whatever he had
In a parking lot in Surquillo, a district of Lima, Peru!
He said, happened the other day.
Thus, did he hear the dead march, for sure he did,
I’ve heard it too, before! And before!
I hung my head, and thought:
What was going through his mind?  Life over death?
God’s mercy?
Did he feel the earth move?
Have a trembling heart?
Was he captured like a bird?
A gun at his head, while in thought at the table
Putting his tomato pills to the edge of his plate,
He said: “It’s all about love isn’t it!?
A statement, question, he knew!
Sometimes good comes out of bad, especially
When one hears the death march—
The perfectly voiceless march of the dead!
He learned he was edible—
In spite of ourselves, we often too often
Multiply our days on earth by two, too many
Always keeping that foot in the door.

Better indeed, to conquer one’s self
Than to be conquered by the thieves!
He who does, is living in self-control,
The other, a person who has lost himself.
He turned a defeat into victory, with love.
What did he gain? Truly:
Life, face, ease, and forte.

Still is better one day lived, as a dog!
Than a dead lion.
Better still, he will see the rise and demise
Of such men, who are so despised?

#4763/ Written: 7-14-2015 (3:30 a.m.) 


Note: there is even a sadder point to all this, if one cannot learn to serve man, how can one ever learn to serve God. Yet I see so often in Peru, upon a person’s death, how great this or that man was, at their funerals they praise them, when you know such men have not served man, nor could they have served God then. The question comes to mind: how are we to speak so fondly about the dead, to know about the dead, when in our minds and hearts we know this? Where they have gone is sad!  Such men, like thieves never die in bed, they die in death, in Hell; even if he is buried suitable with all the crosses and masses to his liking; of course this may be a much debated issue. But it is biblically clear in the NT Bible, for a Christian, “Thieves do not enter heaven,” period!