TEARY EYES (POEM BY CHRIS EBINI)

 Today, I ran into the poem below, written and posted on the yahoogroups discussion forum by hris Ebini. I have read it and my appreciation of it is here below, after the poem.

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TEARY EYES

 

By Christmas Atem Ebini

 

I weep silently

For the many troubles

That has long laden

My dear beloved fatherland

From whence the thoughts

So burdened  in my heart

Leave me with teary eyes

 

I cry quietly

In the many sad moods

Of my ruthless banishment

Away from the sherbet soft blue sky

Of my fragile and sensitive birthplace

Where the birds sing and the cock crow

Leaving me with teary eyes

 

I sob lonely

At Christmastime away from home

As the songs and the plays

Of the children and the gifts

Build the thoughts in my soul

Of the many children I left behind

Also with many teary eyes

 

I lament painfully

In my stomach and in my heart

Of the many innocent souls destroyed

As they brought in the harvest

From the refreshing garden of  trust

That they willfully gave away

To be left with teary eyes

 

For them too I weep

Those golden souls of innocence

Victims of the whims of nature

Brought into destitution of being

From no free choice of theirs

Upon the bitter pleasures and neglect

That left them with teary eyes 

 

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MY APPRECIATION OF THE POEM

 

Interesting poem with wit, punch, profundity and imagery.

But I am sad because the story opens with "Teary Eyes", then it kicks off with "silent weeping" (Stanza 1), followed by "quiet crying" (Stanza 2), "lonely sobbing" (Stanza 3) and "painful lamenting". In the last stanza, ("For them too I weep"), the number of those "weeping" increases dramatically . 

Thereafter the poet produces a succession of macabre, gruesome and apocalyptic images such as "golden souls of innocence" (signifying deliberate victimization), "victims", "destitution", "bitter pleasures and neglect". The poem ends on a doom and gloom note with no hope for the future. If anything, the stakes have become higher because we go away from the rendition seeing not only the narrator weeping but those others who made up the community with him/her - and thereby kept him/her company in an unfriendly , corrupt and destructive world - also now have  "teary eyes". So it`s tears from the beginning to the end.

My question is: Is life so gloomy and pointless? Not even one soul is saved in that poem. Yet no amount of suffering can equal what Jesus went through alone. That was one man carrying the whole of humanity on his single head. What a load and what a burden! He paid  the ultimate sacrifice: death (by Crucifixion) .

Even so, Jesus too fell in life, not just once or twice, but thrice. So why should the poet run away with conviction that   as he has fallen once, that is the end of life. Does it mean he/she does not even believe in the second coming of Christ?