A group of poets have written a message to the powerful of the Earth: give our planet back a future and hope to the generations to come. We will continue to ask institutions all over the world to start a path of civilization that takes into account the rights of the environment, all peoples and future generations; we will no longer accept silence or empty words as answers. We need leaders who listen to the voice of scientists, defenders of human rights and the voice of those who will come and who will judge our responsibilities regarding resources, biological wealth and social justice on our beautiful planet.

We need leaders who listen to the voice of scientists, defenders of human rights and the voice of those who will come and who will judge our responsibilities regarding resources, biological wealth and social justice on our beautiful planet.
We cannot allow the indifference and apathy of those in power, the leaders of nations, to lead civilisation and the environment towards disaster.
We cannot allow their hypocrisy and fear to be the cause of suffering and death for a great number of refugees. We cannot allow the progress of science and technology not to go hand in hand with a moral evolution, and find we are still surrounded by racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance.
We cannot allow future generations and living species other than man to be deprived of fundamental rights. Based on these premises, a number of poets from different continents, all committed to defending human rights and the environment, have written this “Letter to the World”, appealing through their verses to governments, international institutions and those in charge of the destiny of the planet to let go of all selfishness, greed and indifference and to begin working, with responsibility and dignity, towards restoring a future to our planet and hope for those who come after us.

A Letter to the World

Dear World, forgive us
the blood, poison and tears
we have spilled on you,
forgive us the power
we hand to your destroyers.

When we walk your streets
we see injustice
cover the walls of our homes.

Poverty is written
courageously in books;
we sit, alone and desolate.

Can we ever heal your wounds,
the people’s wounds?

Tell us we will not live without love.

There are people who kill, and others who die,
a trend towards nuclear rearmament
and everywhere refugees, like never before.

Remember and remind us you do not belong to us,
but to others who will come.

And others who will come after them.

You’re so full of poverty and misfortune!

Will those who impoverish and destroy
ever stop?

Forgive us the stones and shackles,
the bites and wounds,
the darkness and the screams from the soul.

Over the border, the only question,
“Who are you?”
expects a single answer:
“I am a man,
I am a woman.”

And the child born on the border,
which world does he belong to,
which tribe has raised him?

People take on blurred forms,
their hope has laboured breath.

At the end of the century
only dried up rivers and wasted ruins remain.

A continuous debate and synthesis
of the most conforming film of history.

Forgive us the love we buried,
the hatred we dug up from the abyss,
our hunger, greedy for light.

We still don’t have the answers we seek,
despite being here for some time
and we can still become better people,
capable of kindness and respect.

Forgive us the goodness we pushed away,
the altars upon which we sacrificed our memory,
the fine words we betrayed.

If we lost all thought, we would forget
all the errors of the past, we would lose the sound
of words and their mystery.

Forgive us the boundaries we crossed,
on the other side of justice,
our eyes, their indifference
that anticipates the horror.

Forgive us if time fears us
and we had no mercy
for its lymph, and flowers.

You ask us to save you,
so you can protect us.

Sunbeams filter through the branches,
but anguish reaches down to the roots
and arrows of water pierce the heart.

If we were to lose our love of life
we’d become as cold as ice
and as arid as the desert.

Forgive us if our children are born as
kind as angels, but too soon
we teach them to hate.

Forgive us if we are part of your heart,
if we breathe your breath,
feed off your living pulp,
and yet we are your enemies.

We await a saviour
who will stop the axe that is indifferent
to the true splendour of Nature.

The trees write
to unbending consciences.

Forgive us the wars,
the slaughters of the innocent,
the walls we erect
before their pain,
forgive us the incinerated,
the exhausted, the dismembered,
the suffocated, the murdered,
the drowned and the abandoned.

We will be grateful to those who change things
and open our eyes.

We’re short of nothing,
except a Love that unites us.

Forgive us for being death and lies,
our dear forsaken friend;
but forgive us only if we stop in time.

And if we don’t, leave us
to our death throes,
like an infected wound
that will heal itself.

Roberto Malini, Isoke Aikpitanyi, Alatishe Kolawole, Antonella Rizzo, Dario Picciau, Glenys Robinson, Steed Gamero, Skylar, Daniela Malini