They did not register us
and our deaths
were not linked to the accident.
No processions laid wreaths,
no brass bands melted with grief.
They wrote us off as
lingering stress,
cunning genetic disorders . . .
But we are the payment for rapid progress,
mere victims of someone else's sated afternoons.
It wouldn't have been so annoying for us to die,
had we known
our death would help
to avoid more fatal mistakes
and halt replication of reckless deeds!
But thousands of `competent' functionaries
count our souls in percentages,
their own honesty, souls, long gone.
so we suffocate with despair.
They wrote us off.
They keep trying to write off
our ailing truths
with their sanctimonious lies.
But nothing will silence us!
Even after death,
from our graves
we will appeal to your conscience
not to transform the Earth
into a sarcophagus!
Lyubov Sirota
| The poem "They didn't register us" was written by Lyubov Sirota. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, Sirota lived in Pripyat. She was evacuated to Kiev after the disaster. To express her grief and rage, Sirota turned to writing poems, and collected them in a small book entitled 'Burden'. at the moment, she is seriously ill. We took the poem from the Intenet; it was put there by Paul Brians (USA) |