ROAR, NEW LIBYA ROAR

Thank you very much to the person who has written the following amazing poem. Sure, it means a lot to all Libyans! Thank you!

© J.A. Storey -Taylor 2011

Dedicated to the freedom fighters of Libya

ROAR, NEW LIBYA, ROAR

Keep Rearing in your Pride, New Libya,

Cubs of the Lion of the Desert.

Your people have known occupation too long and

Suppression too often.

It does not need history books to remind you of this.

Your lands bear the stones and scars

Of those who encroached upon them,

Used them to expand sovereignty or

Fight their wars of their ideals.

Now?

The past meets today to stir in your spirit for the future.

It cries in your heart and

Calls to the memories passed down through your ancestors,

As you find will and want - and need - to fight war of your own.

In the span of the life of a man,

To wait for a seedling of the date palm to bear fruit

Is to know patience.

What then of the patience of generations,

Of centuries abided

Under ever elusive independence?

Such forbearance by the forefathers

In the years counted in hundreds,

Till the baying of the Italian Wolves

Stirred the teacher of the Qu’ran

To stir others and

Give reminder to thoughts of freedom.

Courage, passion and steadfastness were

Gifts to determination

To make of that freedom manifest.

It matters not,

This,

To be to no avail.

Those gifts were not squandered.

They became a part of your heritage,

Cubs of the Lion.

After an aeon,

Then twenty years of blood, and

Yet another

Twenty years of more of life lost,

The wheels of time and fortune turned and

You knew liberty.

To a righteous man, and

A righteous world,

Such should have ever been so.

Yes!

Independence had come -

At last!

At last! -

Through peaceful and united means and

To your poverty of wealth, education and experience.

Kind fate... Kind, kind fate... And

Fate kinder still,

To bring to you

The Black Rainbow

In abundance

To feed your families and give way to study to

Follow in the footsteps of scholars, profession and trade, and

Build.

Cruel fate... Cruel, cruel fate... And

Fate crueller still,

To bring to you

The Black Rainbow

In abundance

To feed avarice and

Pave the way for footsteps to follow power,

Which destroyed.

Libya, in liberty,

Was but a child.

It teetered,

Like a toddler

With green bones,

Beneath the Green Mountain.

So little time.

Too little time,

To grow,

To learn,

To be,

To find strength and balance and stability

In that believed in and welcomed but

Unknown, inexperienced, unpractised,

Until the Green Book

Came to slam down

On your eager, enquiring, reaching hands.

Through the brother who has been no brother,

The leader whose only path has been self-serving,

Through spies within and sanctions against you,

You have known fear and suffering,

Not celebration.

Through a self-imposed and self-named

King of Kings,

You have come to know the sherif and sherifa

Must care for all;

A care for the people and

This is beyond wealth and status.

To peaceful protest against

A real, despicable and not unprecedented injustice,

This man of cleverness and cunning

Showed his blindness and stupidity

To the whole;

His lack of caring

For the whole.

Clumsy in his arrogance,

He stepped on the tail

Of that sleeping and

In the doing?

He awoke the essence of

Omar Muhtar,

That is a part of each of you:

Too far!

No more!

He awoke

The Lion in the Cubs.

You were in the right

For your Pride to be pricked and arise;

You have right to be

Proud of your Pride.

You have fought,

You continue to fight,

With the same

Courage, passion and steadfastness

Of your most famed Senussi;

When you went into this fight,

It was with the same

Unknown, inexperience, and lack of practise

With which Old - but

So young Libya -

Met the independence

So quickly stolen from it.

Yet you have learned,

Far quicker still,

To become wise and intelligent

In that which is alien and

Undesirable to you.

Perhaps,

Of Gaddafi,

The most heinous of his heinous crimes,

Of his history as much as

Of today,

Is to have of you turn against the

Heart of the faith that you so deeply love and respect;

To take life from life.

To a gentle people,

A kind people,

People of warmth and humour,

There is heartache in the death

Before,

Behind,

Around you,

Even as you return to prayer.

Make the dua and

Hear Allah speak

In return,

To your hearts.

For Allah is merciful and

You bring His mercy

To the blood and battlefield

That your only choice

Was to choose:

You did not need to choose

To treat your enemies

As sons of Adam.

So little hatred

Beneath your will;

So little anger

Beneath your determination.

Yes...

You have right to your Pride and

Right to be Proud.

So keep Rearing - and

Roar, New Libya, Roar.

SOURCE: http://cerrinoart.webplus.net/roar,new%20libya,%20roar.html