Saadi Yousef
 
To Amiri Baraka

Oh, oh …sleep
Oh, oh…sleep
I’m sleeping
We, the two both are sleeping
In a bed of water.
Oh, oh…sleep.

*
Water might turn fire, and winds axes. We are not in the outset of the doomsday, humble and thirsty, nor we are the first chained in our chains. . No graves were sundered in the wilderness, nor slave ships appear on the horizon. As if cotton nut, black and colossal, has penetrated the veins of stone and asphalt … we are the scum of the earth and the cities that we have built. Swamps are calling us with names presumed forgotten with the oblivion, and that war two centuries ago. Stars are our gravestones in the water. The engulfing silence is our prayer. There is music in the distance. So it's Black Africa.
*
Oh, oh…sleep
Oh, oh…sleep
I’m sleeping
We, the two both are sleeping
In a bed of water
Oh, oh…sleep.
*
To the blind singer I'll light a lantern. To the barefoot women on the embers I'll light two lanterns. We go along with the maps; we go along with those forlorn by time. Who knows! We might reach the land that never was. Is it Africa? Green, green … Master, you who said: You are the salt of this earth. Naked are the lies. We are finished with this whore. Now the road is paved with puss and vomit and drunks who aren't drunks. We shall fold that page/history. If today isn't our 
beginning, then when will we begin? We will be elated by the return of the ships all. The bridges, all, are on fire. Water is on fire.

*
Oh, oh…sleep
Oh, oh…sleep
I’m sleeping
We, the two both are sleeping
In a bed of water
Oh, oh…sleep.

*
Those iron birds headed northward, in full speed like buffaloes, to every resort and fine spot. They left us nothing but shadows. Our blackness isn't dark, isn't darker than the under-skin of a white crown . Let us see your magic! What is safety for the iron birds is for us the imminent separation of two nations. A song of ours used to lull time. Silk was built by the piano.
 The drum is beating!
*Dum, dum, dum, dum
The drum is beating!
Dum, dum, dum, dum
The drum is beating!
*

Don’t sleep!

London 05.09.05
Translated by the author.
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 * Dum, in Arabic, is " blood."