Give us birth, my elders.
Stop the colonial web.
Open the door to freedom.
Cut that binding string.
Unity is imprisonment.
Hope for self gover'nt is you.
You have long been imprisoned.
It was not your choice.
Cut the umbilical cord
Our link to foreign womb.
The birth canal is yours
Either to open or to close.
Open it you must, dear elders,
So that I may be born and live.
Or closed it you could
And the ·curse will fall on me.
Let me live as my ancestors did.
Give your grandchildren a life
Different from that which you had.
Stars of national awareness
Are now shining on our door steps.
Submit to the call of our national stars.
Give us freedom our wise ones.
Let our nation be born.
Don't let the stars be eclipsed again.
The period of darkness
Has been much too long.
Don't let the seeds of your wisdom
Escape from our awareness forever.
Hermana Ramarui (20th century) Palau
Source: Analysis of Meaning,Content and Style: poetry from the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau by Kimberly Kay Au, Pacific Islands Studies Plan B Masters Projects, 1991
Wonderful find
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