In these days of learning to recognize the racism and racial injustice that has gone on in the United States for SO LONG I am reminded of a poem, "Learning to Count" by Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983) (posted at this link back in 2011), a poem that captures the horror of barbarianism.
Learning to count by Nichita Stanescu
Hairy and sweaty sit
the barbarian Hittites.
Learning to count they pull from corpses
fingers, legs, arms, eyes.
Oh, divided ones,
how bloody
is the idea of having ideas!
Hairy and sweaty sit
the grand Hittites, grandly —
from corpses they pull a finger, a leg:
eight, says one,
four, says another.
They are learning to count.
The translation from the Romanian was prepared by Gabriel Prajitura and JoAnne Growney. The original poem in Romanian is available here. IT IS MY HOPE that we can learn to recognize and eliminate hate and discrimination and create justice for all.
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