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THREE HUNDRED TREES
“Like the forest, fraternal…”
(Nazim Hikmet)
Three hundred trees –
what are three hundred trees if not
a hindrance?
A Hindrance, you say,
But to what?
The head of government says, to progress
The sustainability of progress
she proclaimed
and thinks of fast trains
The FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY
she proclaims
and thinks of big projects
Democracy, she proclaims
The representional process
Decisions, reached
and now challenged by grass-roots protest
She does not see democracy at work
WHEN TENS OF THOUSANDS
OF PEOPLE IN A CITY –
ORDINARY FOLKS, PENSIONERS
HOUSE WIFES, THEIR KIDS AND HUSBANDS –
TAKE TO THE STREET
The forces of order, the democratic institutions
ARE THREATENED!
So they sent in the police
Carted to STUTTGART from all over the country
Federal police, northwestern & eastern units
came to the southwest
and with batons, tear gas and pepperspray
battered the aged
middle-aged women
their school-age kids
In the cold morning, their water-canons
left them soaking-wet
From close by, they threw pepper
into their hurting eyes
How did they drag people
away from the trees?
WITH WHAT FORCE –
WHAT VIOLENCE?
But the trees the people tried to protect
are only two centuries old
PLANTED IN THE GARDEN OF THE KING
They survived the last big war
The cold & misery
of the year that followed
when people were eager for firewood
Now the first have been felled.
The wounded are in hospital.
The peaceful are admonished by
the head of government
to stay peaceful.
Progress proceeds, they tell us
And the democratic police
of a democracy that does no longer listen
to the people
has shown its true face:
THE OLD ONE –
AT LEAST AS OLD
AS THESE THREE HUNDRED TREES
2
No Julia was sitting up in the trees –
No famous writer
camping in their shadow –
with the youngsters
and their grandpas
when the mob came – no, the police
And they always come in the darkness
nuit et bruillard…
So little
has changed, over the years…
The
dance of the batons was danced
as they tore down the tents!
tossed tear grass smack into faces!
pointed the hoses of water trucks
at sleepy humans!
It was over, ere at began
the newspapers claim
jeering and mocking and speaking of
“so-called protectors of trees”.
ONE WOUNDED I LEARNED TODAY
they left behind, the violent ones
for every one of three hundred threatened trees.
In jail, a few dozens now –
The youngest of them
a 15 year- old, teenage girl –
the oldest, just sixty-eight.
I know they will call them spreaders of chaos:
those who slept peacefully
under the trees.
They are just as chaotic
as the trees.
So many of them still resist orders
and cling with their roots
to the blood-stained ground
3
WHAT ARE THREE HUNDRED TREES WORTH
IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA
OF A
BIG CITY CRAMPED IN BETWEEN HIGH HILLS?
Who cares for alleys…corridors
that open a route for the wind?
Who wants fresh air in a polluted city?
WHO WANTS GREENS?
Was it in Berkeley in the sixties
when they fought to protect GREENS?
HOISTED THE GREEN FLAG
NEXT TO THE BLACK AND RED
AND FAR ABOVE UNION JACKS
STAR SPANGLED BANNERS
AND OTHER NONSENSE
The anarchy the poets then embraced
was just love of liberty –
a longing common to all people…
Battles for parks can be lost and won
but the longing of the people
their truest buried longing: help to
unearth it, poet!
help the forgetful, the timid, the tamed
and lend a voice of comfort to the awake!
Today, in Stuttgart, Berkeley is alive again:
Water canons washed grandmas from the pavement.
BUT AN OLD GRANNY SPEAKS HER MIND:
I’m already in my seventies, she says
But after I’VE SEEN WHAT THEY DID
TO PUSH AHEAD
WITH UNASHAMED SPECULATION ,
A BIG DOWNTOWN PROPERTY DEAL,
I feel emotions in me
that are not that peaceful anymore
and I thirst for revenge
How much I understand you,Grandmother!
But our strength are our numbers.
Our resolution. Our peaceful protest.
And we’ll teach them a lesson
at the end of the day –
all the bigshots who think they can lord it
over us
We’ll disempower them –
for democracy’s sake
Oct.1, 2010
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