New Poem by Yahia Lababidi

Eyewear is pleased to feature Egyptian poet and aphorist, Yahia Lababidi's new poem today, at a time when Egypt in (still) undergoing so much upheaval and uncertainty. He was born 1973; his latest book, Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing is a critically-acclaimed collection of literary and cultural essays. His first book, Signposts to Elsewhere, was selected for Books of the Year, 2008, by The Independent.

What Is To Give Light

What is to give light must endure

burning, a man once said

Another man became the matchstick

that set a nation aflame

But fire, and its appetite, cannot be

calculated, like freedom

Injustice and desperation make men

combustible, like dry wood

When words lose their meaning

and an entire people their voice -

so they can neither laugh nor scream-

death and life begin to taste the same

From Tunis, to Egypt, to Lebanon to Yemen

the light from a burning man proved catching

And those with nothing to lose, or offer, but bodies

fanned the embers of their hopes into a blazing dream.

poem by Yahia Lababidi

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