I'm also a person. I'm an Eritrean.
When I saw the world didnât care
If I was stripped of everything,
Even my dignity,
And beaten like a slave
Less than human,
I lost all sense of peace except in saying
I am also a person. Iâm an Eritrean.
the first stanza of Issayas Tsegaiâs poem âI Am Also A Personâ. It captures the feeling that even a 'hopeless horizonâ can contain a voice and, however horrifying the losses, it cannot be denied. here is the rest of the peom :
The wind wanted my bonesâŚ
     I wished I was never bornâŚ.
I left my home
Because it abandoned me.
I left my stream
Because I would have drowned.
I left.
I couldnât bear the burdenâŚ
        The crumbled barn
        And livestock disappeared,
         The yard smelling only of dust,
         Nothing to make in to breadâŚ
                No harvest
          Nothing but drought aheadâŚ
                 the angel of death;
          Nothing but one horror
          Pouring over another.
Birds in the swaying treesâŚ
The rhythm of the sea
And music in the stream -Â
They were our dominion and legacy;
We ate and dressed well,
Living and sleeping in peace
And devoted to good work.
I loved this country.
         - Issayas Tsegai
 first published in Issays Tsegaiâs poetry collection Lemin-Leminey in 1998, and translated to English by Ghirmai Negash and Charles Cantalupo (Who needs a story, 2005).Â
