| The Weight of Dust |
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The Weight of Dust
New York, July 11, 2026
Cesar Chelala
They say
a little dust has no value.
I say that today
the lives of children
and ordinary people
have even less.
Watching the news has become
an exercise
in masochism,
and lives -precious lives-
are lost without accountability,
without consequence.
What have we become?
adoring deceitful gods
and disregarding human lives?
How have we become
hardened
to the suffering of others?
as if numbness were a shield
that protects us-
stepping over the rubble
of other people’s lives,
pretending not to hear
the unrelenting killing
carried out
in our name
a somber cruelty
we have learned
to call normal.
Cesar Chelala is a New York writer, winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award and two national journalism awards from the Argentine Association of Newspapers Editors (ADEPA). His poems have been published in Argentina, the United States, the European Union, India, and Japan.
By Paola Bilancieri |
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