David X Novak
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In Memoriam Marielle Franco, 27 July 1979 - 14 March 2018

3/15/2018

 
Quantos mais vão precisar morrer para que essa guerra acabe?
Heavenly Father, please relieve my mind
Against this wickedness of humankind,
That will oppress, and shoring the oppression
Shy not from deeds abominable, aggression
Against those who protest and who fight back,
Nor shun 
no means in boldness of attack.

Teach me, O Lord, to extirpate the worm
That dwells within the heart, and delves long term,
As makes a man, in service of a cause,
Content to abrogate civilian laws,
Committing foul trespass against another
As ought to be his sister and his brother.

Assassination brings an end to things,
Yet let not hope be shorn its angel’s wings,
Even as victims may be martyrs made
When basic decency lies killed betrayed
By treacherous human action past the pale:
Though loved ones die, yet love can never fail.

Lord, Marielle Franco has been killed,
A voice that called for justice rudely stilled,
Yet let us be deterred not by this murder,
Loudly broadcasting wide that we have heard her,
And that “we are together” in this fray,
Even in such words as we heard her say.

The ancient sin, as though a tapeworm in
The body politic, with us has been
Even since slaves were brought across the seas
To give their lives and labor—a disease
From plunderous days, and even days before
When men sought to acquire ill gains by war.

As Marielle Franco now ascends
In spirit to eternity, her friends
And family bereaved, must wet the earth
With salty tears of which there is no dearth,
And carry her to heaven on their sighs
Such as ensue when a good person dies.

We who survive, must dedicate ourselves
To extirpating the vile worm that delves
Like an iniquity that cankers love,
And say, of murder we have had enough,
Adding, in no small voice, that at love’s core
We treasure those same things that she stood for.

All the oppression man has done to man
We must revoke, renouncing as we can,
Even denouncing the atrocious means
(As justice dies in sanguinary scenes)
Of violently exploiting man or beast— 
Even the greatest of us is the least.

She goes, and we retain in memory
An inspiration, how to live as free
And strenuously give voice to what is right
Even though we be martyred in the night
Like Marielle Franco, now deceased,
In legacy of her strong faith increased.

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