Just a moment - Debebe Seifu

Is it in the power of angels

         or mankind

too grant me just a moment

         out of time?

to talk with beauty, truth and love?

to sink into a lovely song, surrender

         to a well-made poem,

give up my consciousness, my heart and body

         just a moment,

let me mind-ship dodge the tidal wave

and run away from ups and downs,

enthralled by just how wonderful its rhythm is...

and nothing, nothing else is anything to me!

---

Debebe Seifu (1950 - 2000) Ethiopia

Translated by Chirs Beckett and Alemu Tebeje

Source: Songs We Learn From Trees. An Anthology of Ethiopian Amharic Poetry, edited and translated by Chirs Beckett & Alemu Tebeje, Carcanet Classics, 2020, p. 105