In memoriam voor de drie onbekende vluchtelingen, waaronder 2 kinderen in de geschatte leeftijd van 9-13 jaar oud, die in de tweede week van november (2017) aanspoelden op Lesvos.

Somebody must have seen you
when you were born.
Your mother that is
and perhaps your father
or was he away 
fighting, or just defending the family?

Somebody must have fed you
because you have lasted some years.
Were there toys around you
where you spent the first years of your life
learning this cruel world
while playing between ruined houses? 

Somebody must have thrown a bomb
or triggered a nasty gun
tearing apart people and homes 
instilling an endless fear.
Did your mother die
or was it somebody else from the family?

Somebody must have taken the decision to flee,
you were too young to make that choice
and had to follow mother, or father
or, maybe it was an uncle
who tried to bring you to safety
together with maybe a brother and a sister.

Somebody must have protected you
on the road in the cold.
Maybe having to sleep under a naked sky
putting a warm blanket around you
whispering in your soft ear
that not everywhere are there bad people.

Somebody must have told you
about safe countries without a war.
Giving you sweet dreams
about a new and shiny life
where you can trust people
who do not kill.

Somebody must have told your protector
where to take a boat to this new life.
Or were you already on your own
having lost your family
just taking care of your siblings
trying to get them to a promised land?

Did somebody see you when you touched the water
or were you asleep and given a shock.
Or were you pushed
or was the boat not resisting the waves?
Did you cry out for your mother
or were you only concerned for your brother and sister?

All the somebodies who were in your life
do not know that you are now gone.
Into a sea that took your breath
into a heaven, of that I am sure.
Or were the somebodies you have known
long gone before you touched the water?

So many godless somebodies 
who never learned to love.
Making war and killing not only you
but so many other innocent souls.
Turning them into nobodies
forgotten even before the war is over.

I am somebody reading your story
taking you into my heart.
Crying for you and telling the sea
how cruel it has behaved.
But it was not the sea (but somebody)
who decided your life was over.