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