TRUTH AT TAHRIR

Truth At Tahrir
(Winter 2011)

I live along a river
Settled by a civilization
More ancient than Egypt

Mine tried to murder theirs
Despot pharaohs destroying ancient walking libraries
Trying to take away their children
Trying to take away their language

Ago and away
In the home of my father
Truth was illegal in my own language
The library and the commons were condemned
Martial law was brutal but brief

Here
Today as yet there is no curfew
Today as yet there is no martial law

Today it is hard for me to remember
All the ways I may speak
Instantly publishing whatever occurs to me

Read or not
I have my SAY
In the language of my fathers

As long as I don’t offend pharaoh

Away and now
In ancient cities
At the steps of ancient libraries
Men and women with their children in arms

Come to the commons
To defy pharaoh’s gagging curfew
Speaking truth in the language of their fathers

Come to the commons day after day
To defy pharaoh’s gagging punishment
Witnessing the silent generations with their bodies

Come to the commons week after week
To defy pharaoh’s murderous attack
Saying the truth now in the language of their own lost bodies

May they hold the commons forever
In every city
In every hamlet
At the steps of every ancient library
At the foot of every walking library

For the unsaid truth of old women
For the unsaid truth of old men
For the voices and the language of each child
For the original people in every original land along every original river
For the heroic chants of the men, women and children of Tahrir
For my parents who sometimes spoke only for pharaoh

For us all