LEBANON ON THE MOVE

Tantrums in the valley beneath

Are echoed repeatedly in the sky above

If only

If only they’d retreat

Like Kingdom forces

With banner before missile

            You know

            Real peace

            Slipped through their fingers

            Like water in a sieve

Abess Alie-Samir Esquire

Former diamond magnet

I salute you

Did I hear well

That one missile sent you home

To the Bacar Valley

Only for another to send you home

To the Kambui Hills

Little did I guess

The conversion of a hilly life

Into a richer valley life

Was an empty vessel

In the hands of choice and duress

I must add a tear

To your river of tears

In the tearing of a valley

Now seated on the epicenter

Of an earthquake

Measured since 1947

I see your face among the displaced

The dispossessed

When will a ruby stand

In that valley

To salute your signature in style

When will the history book

Be ready for your eyes

When will the children

Recite the verses of Omar Kayam

When will a President truly say

They gave you a plot

To plot your peace

When will rhetoric grant you

Permission to look at your gems

Maybe soon maybe not

Maybe the tears will dry up

Soon yes very very soon

Let us keep that

They say after dark the dawn

Let us keep that

They say the shadows of moonlight

Will roam and find rest

Let us keep that

They say the shadows under the rubbles

May not occur twice

Let us keep that

Or may they