'April
is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.'
But it is not April and it was
uncountable red winter flowers that burst their hearts and spilled
their blood onto that awoken land
they ran with hope and fearlessness
and even the trees swayed to look at
them in that winter called an Arab Spring
And in that moment
there was a wild celebration
and a revival of pride
of young men, of women not as sisters
or girls or mothers but as themselves, of all that could happen, of
film stars, of bellydancers, of belle epoque, of shaabi music, of the
candyfloss seller and the homeless
Now
four years have gone
four splintered gates
of uncertainty
a grief for the young men, of women not
as sisters or girls or mothers but as themselves, of all that could
happen, of film stars, of bellydancers, of belle epoque, of shaabi
music, of the candyfloss seller and the homeless
Revenge came with retribution
and the old hands took it like they
were always going to take it
and a photograph of a lion found dead
by the trash in Malhalla says everything
*First line taken from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
