of Democratric Kampuchea's revolutionary Angkar!
Long live its extraordinary clearvoyance!
On our moon there’s nothing,parched earth and dust bury it all.
It took me years to learn to walk upon it,bare feet on thorns.
Muddy water trickles down my throat.
Little by little, I disappear,I'm nothing anymore.
It is strange to drink mud.
The buffalo watch us:"How odd these humans are to drink our water!"
A Nestle tin becomes our unit of measure.
It contains 250 grams of rice.
Very soon, famine strikes:These 250 grams, we share them daily.
of us, then 16,then 25. We share hunger.
My mother fights for us:
She builds a shack of branches, leaves and vines.
Each day she walks two hours so we may drink clean water.
She gets permission to take my father a half-ration.
But one night he tells us:
"I will no longer eat animal food.No. I am a man."
And he stops eating.
I don't understand, I resent him.
They found some sheet metal
to carry his body to the pit grave.
My mother doesn't cry,not a tear before the Khmers Rouge.
That night, she tells me how my father should have been buried: by his own,
by his good teacher friends,traditionally and peacefully.