Could I Ask For More Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

I was a little bird
I sat in a classroom
and studied among the poor and rich;
I died and I was buried
again among the poor and rich
these were the common grounds.
In between my life
I ate from the hands that were so full of dirt
they never knew they had to clean or wash
for they were the ones who held the horns
and butchered the animals
which they sent to get cooked and served;
I also feasted on fruits
and vegetables that grew underground
onions and potatoes, peanuts and ginger
to feel healthy and strong;
In those kitchens were men
who perspired and grunted
and as the dinner got prepared
came the spice grinders
who never washed their clothes
as they treaded their spice-mills,
so did the laundryman
who washed others linen
but not his own.
Then came the grocer and the milkman
who from dawn to dusk
toiled to supply
the necessities for nourishment of my life;
out there sat the tailor and the priest
sharing stories about neighbors misdeeds
one of them was me,
they blamed me for being proud
they thought I never loved God;
In the middle of the road stood a cattle
that had no horns
yet it could hear
when horns were blared
and still it refused to move away
and go into the fields…….
There appeared a train on the tracks
by the side was a bridge over which it went
neither the policeman could give a fine,
as it sped above its time,
nor could the doctor save lives
as a man died in his car ablaze in an accident,
or of those in a house that got razed
by fires of fury and rage;
and as life moved from birth to death
I encountered each one of them
a writer, a bartender,
a preacher and God Himself;
Could I ask for more?