#OromoProtests an indomitable spirit
Battered, bruised, and bleeding
Profusely;
Detained, maimed, and gunned
Pulled one-by-one or in droves
From homes, farms, factories, villages, offices, dormitories, towns, and all
Like one collects ripe oranges from an old tree
And yet unbeaten.
Rather joyous
Buoyantly resilient
A bird returning to spring
Singing from a wintry sojourn
On a nocturnal flight
Long in the waiting and making.
Imperiled and yet impervious
to might
In detention as on the streets
In solidarity or solitude
Defiant.
The self-assured face of dignity
The indomitable
Spirt
Of a bested nation rising
And besting
regenerating
On the agility of a generation
Determined to get the better of
The fluffy false weight
That had it
Down on its face.
Like an idea
Whose time
Finally has come
Rooba’s prophesied future
Bearing life from death and destruction
Has come to life and of age
Here to stay
Proclaim and claim
All that is rightfully its own
No longer vaunting victimhood
A victor
On its own right and term.
Every ebb in the journey
As the flow and surge
The assured stirrings
And flapping wings
Of a Phoenix
Dusting off the ashes
And coming to terms and finding
Its unconquerable self
Reaching deep down into its soul
From which a glorious ember burns
Illuminating the dark body
And all around it
Rediscovering
Its most sublimely essential self
The unchangeable and intangible
The preserved and unreserved
The generative and generational
For the first time
Like a deity suddenly aware
And awoke to its primeval
Power and ineluctable destiny
She, too
In excitement
broods over the debt
Owed to its manifest destiny.
“Is this all you got?”
All my life
I tried in vain to understand
why the elephant in Oromo
saw not the supremo in itself
failing to charge
To the incessant neglect and abuse
And take charge
Even now, I know not why
but by way of a guess,
I can most definitely try.
It was mocking its oppressors.
To every act of his
Like Mother Earth to man’s transgression
The unuttered response
Most probably was
Stoic:
“Is this all you got?”
Until he saw
her death and abuse was his own
Congressman Keith Ellison
“Our son
Our sun
This Keith Ellison
My champion,” said
A caged bird
Shunned by everyone
Else.
My son, my sun, my champion
My friend
This Keith Ellison
The caged bird
Shunned by everyone
Said.
With feet fettered
And throat mute
A champion the caged
Bird needed a flute
To sing.
A caged bird does not
Know only how to sing
but champion
For the caged bird’s unsung
Songs of freedom
Are
His own.
Are interested in freeing the prisoners or humiliating the gov