I lost my poems, my praise, my songs.
I lost my anger, my sorrow, my bitterness.
I have nothing to say, nothing to condemn.
Everything is silent, vibrations in a vacuum
too still to propagate a small wave of sound
No cry would reach a human ear,
victorious over empty space.
Could it be shame, sadness or fear?
It is unknown, out of the blue,
a turbid lucidity, a silence disturbed.
Amha Asfaw (born 1947) Ethiopia
Translated by Amha Asfaw and Getatchew Haile
I lost my anger, my sorrow, my bitterness.
I have nothing to say, nothing to condemn.
Everything is silent, vibrations in a vacuum
too still to propagate a small wave of sound
No cry would reach a human ear,
victorious over empty space.
Could it be shame, sadness or fear?
It is unknown, out of the blue,
a turbid lucidity, a silence disturbed.
Amha Asfaw (born 1947) Ethiopia
Translated by Amha Asfaw and Getatchew Haile
Source: Songs We Learn From Trees An Anthology of Ethiopian Amharic Poetry, Chris Beckett and Alemu Tebje, eds., Carcanet, 2020
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