Down To Arms Mahgoub Sharif

Con...
Ten Songs for Life
Mahgoub Sharif
Translator: Asha Musa


( 5 )
A Bird, from one end of the land
On its way to the other end
It knows the harvest time
It knows the seasons’ rhyme
The time when fields in blossom
And when the locusts chime
It cries as a hunter’s trigger
Should aim at the nest and titter



( 6 )
What a woman!
The least to say is that…
She is the dearest of Human
She weighs a dozen of men!
She walks and never bends
Holding her head high
She walks, between well and shore
Up and down she keeps ably
By day with ‘assawaqui’*,
By night weaving ‘tawaqui’*
And always there when baby cry

(7)
So lively ,disciplined and in zeal
The ant,
In the queer queue or when alone,
Is always determined to make things go
No force or fear of rule watching behind
No worry no hurry nor plot to hide
‘So much the better than human deceit!’
haila…haila… haila hop
She finds herself on board a ship
And once again a road in town
Still the same zeal and zest
No worry no hurry in her queer queue
Escaping a foot-crush over head flew
From a playful child or heat aglow
Stubbornly hanging to the seed at hand!!
The seed belongs to the Union Band!





( 8 )
Miraculous: the floating cloud
And the link between roots
And seeds still deep in the ground
The songs of birds
And the raging war so loud
With sword and spear
And the link of the woods and the wild
The ‘rababa’* and scarf,
The course of the Nile and a door shutter
And the crying of a prep school child
Seeking a lead pencil she dropped on a bus
With the rumbling of lead bullets yonder,
Where bread, by the wanton hands monopolized.
A child, eating from a nonexistent time
Drinking from a nonexistent time
And hence……
A Strike



( 9 )
The sun rises
The smallest in a mount, you can see
The great Ports start to ascend
And the factories vividly roar
Streets and bridges fill
And chests with pride sore
With crowds of workmen brisk with thrill
Palaces shrink sensing the chill
Of the creeping end

( 10 )
The city wakes up
A bath… a light
A cigarette and the morning tea
A penny for food, a penny for mutton
A song, just to cheer up while fixing a button
A stitch to mend the garment and think of the sorrow
She curses the government; throws away the pound, useless and rotten
She dusts her shoes and off to face the knotty life
She tears to rags her shirt and beats them children
Why beat the children…why beat your children?
Long live strive!
Strive worries the government
It puffs and glazes
With the fire of the fight
It stunts and grunts until day light
It stealthily creeps out, crooked, sad, and silent
It gets in a fit and in asylum resides
And long live the heroes…Long live the heroes!
Keep ablaze the fight !
Long live the Strive!


Asha

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