Ethiopia - a Dream for Many, a Nightmare for Many More

Nairobi — People are getting nervous

Is she about to snap?

The never colonised

Sweetheart of the continent

Her second largest population

Oh Ethiopia,

A dream for many

And nightmare, for many more

Pointing outward

into the big wide sea

But not quite touching it

Red

with generations of my very blood

yet it's only now

That people are getting nervous

Come! It's time for us to fact check!

Who is dead!

Which flag did he wave!

How much is his name worth at the altar of extraction and give and take!

Yellow, red, green - wear it now and save your life!

Like my people don't know peace talks

Like your guns didn't tear up the grounds of gadaa

Just for a little short change

I've watched the sun rise and set from this very home

Watched thousands climb out of pits and come back to try again

Reading books to fourth graders under the cool of Bale's mountain's

With wrists marked forever by a prisons hold

Ploughing land on the outskirts of the "addis ababa" - the "new flower"

Ya Tuluma tiyyaa!

Nobody really knows that entire bloodlines were wiped out so that Bole could hold the seat of the African union upon you

Returning to the gaming shop in Neqemte's quiet corner. Finally safe. But not for long. They always come back, angrier than before at their own lives and at what they know of you. I hope you survive.

Nobody wants peace more than the drought shaken land my feet forage on the daily

But I don't want a peace that can be undone by another deal

made in another house

that comes with another plane

that drops yet another sound from our sky onto my kitchen table

Dead again

That will not be my fate

Soreti Kadir is an Oromo poet, activist, and journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Soreti Kadir, Oromo storyteller, journalist, activist, and facilitator

AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.