APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS

CHANCED upon this little poem on the wall of Cha Mercado, a netizen friend. I remember reading this poem some 50 years ago... That was when our country was in the crest of an unparalleled intellectual ferment that led to the declaration of martial law two years later and a detested dictatorship by Ferdinand Marcos. Otto Rene Castillo was a political poet, who fought against a dictatorship in his home country, Guatemala. He was killed fighting state troopers. Please read ... Thanks Cha, hindi na ako nagpaalam. ctto ...

APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS
By Otto Rene Castillo
A Guatemalan poet

One day
the apolitical intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our country.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will ask them
of their long sterile combat
with “the idea
of the nothing.”
No one will care about
their higher financial learning.
They won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward’s death.
They will be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications
born in the shadow
of the total lie.

On that day
the simple men will come,
those who had no place
in the books and poems
of those apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
those who mended their clothes,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens,
and worked for them
and they’ll ask:
“What did they do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out in them?"