ºclimo #12: First It Came For..

First it came for the Land and the Seas
and I did not speak out
because I did not think I was the Land or the Seas.

Then it came for the Animals and the Insects
and I did not speak out
because I did not think I was an Animal or an Insect.

Then it came for the Impoverished and the Small Island States
and I did not speak out
because I did not think I was the Impoverished or the Small Island States.

Then it came for me,
and there was no one left
to speak out for me. 

An adaptation of Martin Niemöller’s (1946) post-Nazi poem ‘First They Came’.

By Jonathan Hyde