For I was there!
(Addressed to Christian missionaries of the world)
by Dr. Hailu Araaya
When the last trumpet shall have sounded
And all men shall have risen from the dead,
To the left of the Throne shall assemble a multitude-
Men and women with faces behind masks.
(Masks of arrogant blindness they had worn on earth
And now risen with them to betray them on judgment day).
To this multitude Christ shall say:
I was there,
In everything and everywhere,
But you saw me not.
Multitude:
Lord, when were you there and we saw you not?
when were you there
were you there
there
and we saw you not
saw you not
you not not
Christ:
I was there,
In everything and everywhere.
I was in the cold-beaten face of the Eskimo
Greeting you with a smile,
But you saw me not.
I was in the Pygmy of the Congo forest
Singing his molimo,
But you saw me not.
I was in the wandering Bedouin
Roaming the deserts of Arabia,
But you saw me not.
I was in the Navajo, the apache, the Blackfoot and the Omaha,
The Paiute, the Shoshoni, the Cherokee and the Tuscarora,
Nations of men whose tongue conveyed what the heart contained,
I was in the Mayan, the Aztec and the Inca,
Peoples who spoke the language of the stars,
But you saw me not.
In ancient Venice, I was a Jew, in the ghetto;
“I must go to the market,” I pleaded with you,
“I need some nourishment for my hungry child,’
‘Some Ointment for the aching joints of my father,
‘And so oil for my lamp.”
But at sun down, you clutched me by cloth,
Dragged me to the ghetto, were you said I belonged,
I was herded with the likes of me in misery.
You locked me in the ghetto,
You called yourself a Christian
And stood sentry by the gates.
My child died of hunger,
my father died of joint aches,
and amid that curse I sat in misery
But you saw me not.
I was in the ghettos of Tunisia and Morocco,
In Poland I was corralled
I longed for freedom and fresh air
But at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau
You made me breathe your poison gas
And you fed my body to the flames.
Though like a phoenix from the ashes I rose
You saw me not!
I was in the ghetto of New Babylon:
In the fatherless child that shared its crumbs with the rats,
In the defeated, they dispossesses, and the aged
Who, in their days, had bravely born the burdens of your land
But now waited in sad silence,
For bread from your begrudging hands.
Yes, I was in New Babylon,
In that forsaken land,
But you saw me not.
Yet, what you saw must have frightened you,
For you turned your back and fled
and buried in suburban sand.
I was on the coast of Africa
In the mother that suckled a child by the sea
From a breast full of milk
but then soured by touch of new and cruel slavery;
I was in the aged chief sick to the soul
Gazing across the vast ocean that had taken many a warrior
To a life of slavery in a strange land.
I was I the millions of those shackled men you hauled across the sea
On the ship that bore my name:” Jesus Christ!”
I was in those who died in anguish
and those whose bodies you cast overboard
To feed the fishes of the sea,
But you saw me not.
(O seas!Oceans! give up they dead
And let the spirits rise
To give testimony to the cruelty and blindness of these men.)
My voice was the million shackles clanging,
My voice was the million babies crying,
My voice was a continent wailing
Plagued by loneliness and want of men
My voice WAS!
But you heard me not.
I was in the soul next to your soul,
Within a reaching distance,
Anxiously waiting to sing with you
the song of life that for so long you had sung lonesomely
Within the confines of your self-made prison,
but you turned your eyes away
And wandered a zillion miles,
For a zillion years into eternity
In search of me not.
Yet, how can you find me when you never lost me?
Wherever you went I was there
In everything and everywhere.
I was in the birds of the sky
In the creatures of the land
In the fishes of the sea;
I was in the purity of the waters
And the freshness of the air that you befouled.
This was the Pacific Ocean,
This was the Atlantic Ocean,
This was the Indian Ocean,
and this was once the Mediterranean Sea,
now dead and filled putrid sludge
where cancer, polio, leprosy
And a hundred more abominations breed
An with sinister intent crawl out of that murk in waves
To plague your flesh, your sinews and your brains.
When the worms that never dies shall have consumed you thus
Universal law shall be modified, by a comma;
Suddenly, the earth shall change its course
And with a speed of light, plunge you
Into the gaseous depth of the sun
Where the engulfing flames of hell burn you for ever, and ever…..
For I was there
in everything and everywhere
But you saw me not.
source:Lotus
Quarterly Journal Afro-Asain Writings
No 46-4/80
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