Columbus Day Poem by Dmitry Garanin

Living close to Columbus Avenue
south of Columbia University
not far from the corner of Central Park,
where the statue of the slave trader stands,
celebrating that black day,
when five hundred years ago in October
the dove of death with his comrades
for the first time descended onto the soil of the
Western Hemisphere -

I am thinking about what was probably
the first in history,
the biggest, and the most successful genocide
that spread Western civilization
by a factor of two
and provided me
with greater freedom of maneuver
and better professional prospects
at the expense of destroying civilizations
of peaceful and nature-bound peoples,
some of which haven't left a gene behind.

Thinking about
why the all-seeing Christian God
did not stop his envoys with cross and armor
by sinking their ships in a storm,
I am looking through the thick of alien people,
just like myself,
who have filled the void,
and the boxes of concrete and glass
appear to me as parts
of a giant columbarium.

23 October 2014