Louis Yako > Quotes > Quote > Louis shared it

“[A Rose in Time of War]

I saw a red rose
growing from black earth,
kneaded with shrapnel,
blood,
and shattered glass.
I said to the rose:
“Congratulations!
You survived
war,
death,
and destruction.”
The rose replied:
“How dare you congratulate me?
I did not survive the war.
My mother carried within her
the promise of countless seeds.
They all died,
and I alone remain
in a world without roses.
And even I
did not survive whole.
Only part of me survived.
Here I stand before you,
half alive,
bearing witness
to humanity's hypocrisy
and its massacres.
How dare you congratulate me?
Every seed my mother bore
was destroyed,
while I remain alone,
struggling beneath
this black earth
and this terrible ruin.
I lay buried
in utter darkness.
The only comfort I knew
was the sound
of church bells
ringing in the distance,
though I never knew
whether they rang
for a feast day
or for the funerals
of victims betrayed by fate.
The only comfort I knew
was the voice
of a muezzin,
chanting from afar
with a grief-stricken heart:
'I bear witness that there is no god but Allah...'
And let me tell you something more:
I would never have bloomed
in this barren,
blackened soil
were it not
for the salty tears of children
who wept over this earth,
mourning their families,
their futures,
and everything they had.
And here I stand,
not a survivor of what happened,
but a witness to its ugliness.
Even now,
I hear gasps
and cries,
and I cannot tell
whether they belong
to victims taking their final breaths,
or to newly born babies.

20 December 2023”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]