Farewell the Nightingales by Dennis Brutus

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 Farewell the Nightingales

Dennis: "This is one local aspect of a problem which is actually global."

Walking the streets of the Shah's Tehran  

I was conscious of lurking Savak—  

cries of tortured victims hung in the dusk  

even as I lingered over buttered long-grain rice  

in a dim bistro's magic cave:  

That was then: horror enough, you might decide  

but now a new noxious blight  

covers over Persepolis' ancient lances,  

a ghoulish silence cloaks the environs.  

Farewell the Nightingales! Song is fled.  

We have willed desolation on our world.  

(Footnote: The Mail & Guardian, January 16-22, 2009, reports: "Crows flee Tehran's pollution... high levels of carbon monoxide... drove off... nightingales")  

20 January 2009