The Believer
written by: Moses Ameh
@_amehaic
Tell me countryman,
What is left of our pride that we guard it so?
Of what use is our right of birth when our children starve and die?
Shall we not barter it for bread so they may eat and live?
Must we not comfort ourselves and say:
Perhaps there is some Moses amongst them?
Perhaps there is a promised land we cannot see?
For we know what fate befalls those that hope and dream;
Those who eat their pride and journey into the wilderness.
Do they not perish as proud parched pilgrims at an oasis?
Do not their proud spirits which at first inhabit crowned eagles become hapless?
So despondent that they lose their crowns and become bald as vultures?
Do these vultures not fly in wait
to consume the corpses of proud parched pilgrims?
Why then should we hope?
Should we not offer our hope to the four winds and forget it?
And if at all by the benevolence of some unknown god
it returns bearing the fullness of harvest
by which time we would have been long gone,
would our children not feast and fatten themselves?
Would they not raise our statues and sing us songs of adulation?
Tell me countryman,
Have you not heard the whispers?
The whispers that summon as many as the clarion and the bugle?
Have you not heard the stir that troubles the silence?
Have you not heard that somewhere near and not so long from now,
from where tomorrow is only a day’s ride,
there lies a city where each one saves his brethren and thus himself.
A place where the earth and sky embrace.
Should we not harken to Cassandra and mind heed what the prophets say?
Should we not saddle our donkeys and set forth at once?
We will ride all day and arrive at dusk in Idyllopolis:
that ancient city where a grievous whirlwind blows that touches earth and sky,
where thunder rumbles like a contraction and the earthquakes likewise,
where lightning races across the sky like a mighty tear.
There we will wait and watch in eager anticipation
as the celestial membranes are rent,
as the liquor is let loose,
as our pride and eagles are once more crowned.
Should we not then make haste to welcome it like the Wise men of old?
For can we cross the threshold without first opening the door?
Indeed can the future arrive without today to welcome it?
- The Believer - July 19, 2024
- But Death Was Sent Instead - May 7, 2021
