Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
Between two egos
locked in the mirror of power,
a country fractures—
maps measured
by what fills pockets,
not what beats in hearts.
There,
two names quarrel over blood,
war is managed
by hands that do not pray,
by signatures from beyond the seas,
where homelands are traded
for a polished smile
and support that cannot see a human face.
Here—
inside the Journalists’ House in Cairo,
celebration is not a passing ritual,
but the recovery of meaning
when a nation grows old
yet its idea refuses to age.
Seventy years,
and the flag keeps learning
how to rise
even when the mast is broken.
Five years,
and **Sadiq al-Mahdi**
still enters the hall
without permission,
sits among rivals,
and gathers them
into a sentence
wider than disagreement.
Here,
unionists stand beside leftists,
exile shakes hands with hope,
and politics remembers
it once had a heart
before it had a podium.
Guiding words fall like compasses:
the nation before the self,
peace before victory,
the army grows strong
when it guards the constitution,
and weak
when it seeks the throne.
That night,
independence was not a date
but a responsibility.
**Sadiq al-Mahdi** was not a memory,
but an unfinished path.
O Sudan,
when your people celebrate abroad,
it is not escape—
it is refusal
to leave you alone in the dark.
Some nations live longer
when they are remembered
with truth.
