Poem by Yahia Lababidi

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 Libya 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.


"What is to Give Light" by Yahia Lababidi