If This Is A Man

You who live safe
In your warm houses
You who find, returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or a no
Consider if this is a woman
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you
Carve them in your hearts
At home, in the street
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children
Or may your house fall apart
May illness impede you
May your children turn their faces from you