Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
Leaders of the regimes,
Have you not wearied of statements
scattered like ash
upon the faces of martyrs?
You write with broken pens,
you cry with muted voices,
letters fall like autumn leaves
into a valley deaf to the wails of the bereaved.
O you who gather in gilded halls,
do you hear a child searching for his toy
in the rubble of a charred home?
Do you see a mother gathering the remains of her son
in an evening poured out in blood?
Your statements feed no hungry,
heal no wounded,
build no peace.
They are fuel that fans the fire of massacres,
and extinguishes the last sparks of hope.
How long, O leaders of the system,
will your statements keep falling,
while your nation burns in silence?
