And the Idols will fall
And the Idols will fall
And the Idols will fall,
When the people wake up to their pride
Every time a nation takes a nap, an idol wakes up
Why don’t the people learn from old mistakes?
Every time a nation walks away from education and morality,
It heads towards its catastrophe
Its fatality is always in swallowing humiliation
Its submission pulls it to the death bed
There is no goodness in a nation which lets its rats be the leaders
And lets its dogs be the princes
A nation which eats what it doesn’t plant and wears what it doesn’t make
And lets its fools make the decisions
But also there is no goodness in a nation that is led by a stick,
As sheep are only good to be slaughtered and grilled
Sleepers are good only for snoring
And slaves are good only for being loyal to their masters
The people who are whipped while they stay silent,
Don’t deserve to look into the sky
Nations that don’t learn from the lessons of others are
Nations that become a lesson to others and that end disappointed
Those who don’t learn early how to swim,
They may learn, one day, in the rivers of their blood
We do not have time anymore to fight and oppose each other
It is difficult to break a band, but easy to break individuals
***
A Poem translation
(Can be shared without permission)
Tarif Youssef-Agha
An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet
Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’
Friday October 4, 2013, Houston, Texas
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry