Ariel Dorfman has spent his life all over the globe, but always near the center of world literature. In the early 1970s he served as cultural advisor to Chilean president Salvador Allende, until a US-backed coup drove him into exile. You can read about the experience of that dislocation in his classic Heading North, Looking South. He writes poetry, essays, novels; his plays have been widely performed; and here he shows he’s a master of that new genre, the 350-word piece. We’re awfully grateful. For more poems and essays, click here.
POEM FOR THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THREE FIVE O
by Ariel Dorfman
Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear
What should I do?
The polar bears are dying out.
Oh dear Oh dear
The children cannot breathe.
What should I do?
The elephants have nowhere
to flee.
The elephants Oh dear it’s true.
What should I
can I
must I do?
Oh dear Oh
Three Five O
Oh dear that scares me scares me so
Oh dear we won’t survive
Three Five O up in the sky
and no more birth
and it’s good-bye.
The seventh extinction is on its way.
Can the eighth extinction be far behind?
Oh dear
It’s much too big for little me
Not a tree not a tree
not even a shade of green.
Oh dear oh dear.
The cities all
vanished
wiped out.
The drought the plague the black dark
death.
Not even a bird
for our last breath.
And there’s nothing
nothing
nothing
I can do.
Much too big for you for him for her for me.
We’re melting the sea.
Oh dear
Oh.
Oh if I could only trust
the hand that is close
the hand that is here
Oh if I could count all over again
but not with dread.
Maybe one plus one makes more than two
maybe three can be three million strong
in fact
maybe five means five billion tall
ready to act
to make that O the sign of birth
and not the mark
of nightmares long
and lonely bread.
Three Five O
Dot.Org
Three Five O
organizers bold
bells that toll
climbers on the mountain
divers under the reef
we’ll come together
we’ll come together
in every corner of the earth
we have very little time
but we have each other
we have very little time
but I have little you
and you have little me
and time enough for us
to act and be free
as long as we have each other
one hand in my hand
there can only be birth
my dear oh my dear
there’s just love enough and time
now and here
now and here
to act and then nothing
nothing
nothing
to fear