It was written by a young Otto Rene Castillo: a Guatemalan born writer -now deceased.
One day
the apolitical intellectuals of my country
will be interrogated by the simplest of our people.
They will be asked:
“what did you do,
when your nation died out slowly;
like a sweet fire, small and alone?”
On that day,
no one will ask them about their dress,
or their long siestas after lunch.
No one will want to know about their sterile combats with the idea of the nothing,
nor would they be asked about their absurd justification
born in the shadow of the total lie.
No one will care about their higher financial learning;
they won't be questioned on Greek Mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust,
when someone
or something
within them
began to die the coward's death.
On that day
the simple people will come:
those who had no place in the books and poems of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs;
those who mended their clothes
and drove their cars
and cared for the dogs and gardens
and worked for them.
And they will ask again:
What did you do when the poor suffered?
And when tenderness and life burned out in them?
Apolitical intellectuals of my sweet country,
you won't be able to answer.
A vulture of silence will eat your gut.
Your own misery will pick at your souls.
And you will be mute
in your shame.
THE END.