The blood it flowed
Down an undetermined path
Washing with it
The expressions of a non-violent wrath

The fire it blazed
Over the body of Bouazizi, vegetables he was selling
Igniting a flame
Of global freedom story telling

The fighter planes roared
Through the skies of desert lands
Burying our secrets
Inside shifting Libyan sands

The streets clashed
Between Outtara-Gbagbo
As the vagina again a battlefield
In an Abidjan struggle of power-ego

Domodedovo airport blasted
Through the body of a disgruntled
That chose harm to self and us
When non-violent expressions became stifled

The bullets fired
Across a disputed border
Where a Preah Vihear temple
Became a construct for Thai-Cambodian disorder

Churches burned
Down a Muslim-Christian solidarity
Of the faithful in Ethiopia
Creating divide inducing triviality

We are a world out of balance
We are a people losing our vitality
Purposely moving off center
And cracking open our human fragility

Flash floods unleashed their fury
In Queensland’s forgotten tomorrow
And rivers open their banks, overflow
Writing a Bolivian sorrow

The earth screamed in Christchurch
Deafening tender ears
As Nature’s personal rhythms
Sounded over our historical years

While Gods and Goddesses fought under the Pacific
We felt their movements all over Sendai
Revealing to us our vulnerability
Beyond our own designed mortality
Amidst a united global cry

Does not the murmur of the earth
And the tears of the lands we rape
Awaken us to give birth
To a life beyond hate

Does not the anguish of our neighbours
And Nature’s notice of eviction
Remind us of the passing
Of what we hold on as friction

We are a world out of balance
We are a people losing our vitality
Purposely moving off center
And cracking open our human fragility

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* Billene Seyoum Woldeyes holds an MA in gender & peacebuilding and is an MA candidate in peace, development, security and international conflict transformation. She is an Ethiopian poet, writer, feminist activist and blogger at http://ethiopianfeminist.wordpress.com.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.