For he who listens silently to silence, amidst serenity so tranquil,
amidst those silenced, and silence spoken through tales of how Menelik aptly said: silence has its
own say!
From what you and I talked about, so far, so long, which one is left to love, which one is left to hate?
From the status cue above, from that forbore talking to the villagers from above,
and to the person made of talk, with no benefit even for himself,
who by a void thought to try to shadow tales spying on the very truth of the people.
Woe to him, who by a slight sound became a coward, inflicting hidden injury,
letting thousands get killed.
Countrymen! What is this mishap, this catastrophe that rained on our people? Is a stronger silence
needed to be heard?
Why is the city at the centre of silence while it has some truth to tell?
Should I challenge what reigns with new telling stories telling silence on behalf of the people who
lost
their voice to history?
And I say vehemently,
as Menelik aptly said: silence
has its own say! Still my thoughts punished by other thoughts, thinking how many kings shall we
expect,
how many tales shall sound unheard silence anew?
Now my country whips a cream like butter extracted from shaken
milk. Still, now, here I am
with a stringent question
ever unanalyzed ever unanswered.
Though thought so silent, so through thought so unquiet, so the neighbourhood tells me its tale in
tranquility, so narrating
its history, dissolving its history and stealing mine. Now
my old neighbor’s old tale tells like a dagger: ‘The mere ancient silence,
a bolt from the blue for the king, a whisper to God.’
So said the old neighbor, so made us in despair, so nullifies my life, so by a zero cancelled.
So he, by telling his tale of past
silence was loud enough to be heard. And this reduces me to a non-acting generation
that can’t make its own history its own history.
And yet, here I am, still here, still losing a city within a city. Still asking a question that I fight
still in each passing day:
‘O! Dear city, dear city,
In your silent village, you are within a “Wax – and – Gold” complexion.
And to distil the Gold, how many eras shall we exhaust?
How many thoughts shall we crush until we raise a sound king,
who can
listen to our silence.’
