Moments At Standstill Poem by Fasika Ayalew

To sow and harvest
To collect and barn
Clouds gather
Rainfall to yield
With light the day starts
With darkness it ends

In strife for too long to be
In the land of the Cush
Near the sea,
The clouds rebelled
The meadow frowned
The soil opposed
Fruits they withheld
The clouds gave way
To a dead blue sky
The land became barren
And so unfertile

Babies sucked dry nipples
Crowded with dead corpuses
A cry was heard
A wail of desperation
To be saved from starvation

Live Aid was staged
Now celebrities lobby
To gather helping hands
The truth remains…
Where there is no needy
There are no alms

On to thy lord
Land of Cush
Stretch your hands
Get poorer and poorer
Where there is no slave
There is no master

Only stretch thy hands
And moments of unity
Moments of harmony
Moments to love
Remain at stand still
Until posterities to come
Since original sin

If there are no faces so scrawny
For a breaking news a war story
There won’t be a Samaritan; a pacifist
If the world goes on without conflict
If the “Dark continent” is in harmony
How can the Lords rise to glory?

Stretch thy hands
Oh, Land of Cush
Get poorer and poorer
Where there is no slave
There is no master!