Читать книгу Listener - Lemn Sissay - Страница 13

A man shot a man who was a father,

The son of the dead father shot the father of the other son

Who was the man who had shot the first father.

Then I was born – I was told it didn’t matter

’Cause time had passed.

But my uncle who was holding the pain

Of his dead brother – who was my father –

Said he couldn’t forgive because every year,

Every minute of every day he loved his brother

And consequently there was a score to settle.

I am living here because there was a revolution

And some say this was why the man killed the father in

The first place – our family lost our property.

But I can go back – I am a man now.

The son of the neighbour who was the original killer

Was living in our house at home, said that he owned it now.

My uncle travelled back, to our homeland, but no longer,

No longer felt at home in his own homeland. He took a gun

Which was owned by an old friend of the counter-revolution

And shot himself. And the neighbour who was the son of

The man who I was told was a killer told me, at his funeral

That his dad hadn’t shot first that my dad had.