Do you remember?!
Coz they always say you will remember......
Your first day in school... First bike... first fight
They say you will remember
The gorgeous girl next door…your first love letter...
and the tiny moments that you thought they will not matter
you will always remember
As if "first" magically tempting the memory to render...
For me it was my first flight in that very first summer... as simple as it seems but I (pause) still remember...
Carrying the small kid inside of me ...wearing the countless dreams in my mother eyes
Reciting every verse I memorized…Wishing for everything I fantasized...
Oh taxi driver! ...fly through the shortest way
To the airport go and let me start the adventure...
NEXT!!!....NEXT!!! (The sound of the officer)
What happened at that counter?!!!
Everything frozen …like in the bleak winter
The joy turned to sorrow….and the voice came....please Sir Follow!
Sit and patiently wait.....don't ask or bother
But the little kid refuses to surrender
Anxiously looking! Asking me why?!! …What is happening? Why you and I?!!!!
I couldn't face him with the answer
The questions flow with every hour...
Making it even harder and harder
The officer came with his heavy steps…Ripping the fantasies, stepping on the dreams
Carelessly replying: Somali you are so don't wonder!!
At that very moment the kid ran to the corner
Seeking a refuge I couldn't provide ... looking for a shelter....
Refusing to surrender.....he gathers the shattered dreams to stand and holler
with the deep voice of agony :
Somalia is me…
The lovely scent of my home... The laugh and the tear
The kindness of my elders and my mother's face filled with cheer
It is every drop of blood in my veins asking me not to sheer
It is where I belong..
Somalia is all of us...
The charming bride, the colorful dance, the proud father and the tearful mother...
The dreaming youngster, the simple worker, the creative writer …
and all the human pictures you saw before.
It is the sounds of the poems rooting us deep into the desert...
gathering us in times of happiness!...holding us together in the time of sadness !...
It is our existence …
Somalia is I
The moon in the starless sky …
The yellow sands, colorful mountains, endless shores, the beautiful sea
and the countless beauty you will never see.. on your news channel !!....
So close your eyes... and listen to that Somali Shepherd...leaning on that deeply rooted ancient tree...singing: ""Somalia is me ...it is my sphere ""....
NOW!!
I turn away from the anguish and the memories ... and open a new page...
The title??! FUTURE is filled with felicities…
It is the coming tomorrow you don’t see...
The days that will thrive with respect and peace....
When the land will be covered with warmth and kindness
And the sky rains forgiveness… and love like a breeze transmits from he to she to me to us by just a glance.
Tomorrow we sit around the dinner table in that sentimental place we call home
Chatting and forgetting every day we were refugee...
Forgetting the past with all it is pain, hate and blood.....
Singing today we are free…nobody will again have to flee
Since then my life didn’t change much...we couldn’t reach a settlement!...
It was one flight after another...and everywhere I went strangely I had the same neighbor…Somalia’s pain!!!!!
the little kid grow up to be a man... and he wrote his vows
For better and worse...Somalia I will be here
As you always know me faithful and sincere...
Somalia together we will carve all the suffering...to statue that will constantly remind the future that Somali is a survivor.
Statue defiantly define Somali
as poet...as worrier
as poet...as worrier
So let us pray for the coming peace to hasten his steps...to fold all the suffering …
and that the hardships will be the wise stories to tell ….
Once upon a time son
There was a magical land
Filled with darkness…..that you can’t even see your hand
The worrier came and lit up the candle of hope …
Oh! My son you fall sleep!!!!...
Tomorrow then we will continue so you can understand ….
How the morn born from a single candle?!…
How the poet taught a nation to stand?!
Ismail A. Ali
Copyright © 2011
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