Lebanon On The Move Poem by Moses Kainwo

Tantrums from the valley beneath
Are echoed repeatedly from above
If only
If only they’d retreat
Like Kingdom forces
With banner before missile
You know
Real peace
Slipped through their fingers
Like water in a sieve

Abess Alie-Samir Esquire
Former diamond magnet
I salute you
Did I hear well
That one missile sent you home
To the Cana spot
Only for another to send you home
(For lack of chemistry for wine miracles)
To the Kambui Hills

Little did I guess
The conversion of a hilly life
Into a richer valley life
Was an empty vessel
In the hands of choice and duress

I must add a tear
To your river of tears
In the tearing of a valley
Now seated on the epicenter
Of an earthquake
Measured since 1947
I see your face among the displaced
The dispossessed

When will a ruby stand
In that valley
To salute your signature in style
When will the history book
Be ready for your eyes
When will the children
Recite the verses of Omar Kayyam
When will a President truly say
They gave you a plot
To plot your peace
When will rhetoric grant you
Permission to look at your gems

Maybe soon maybe not
Maybe the tears will dry up
Soon yes very very soon
Let us keep that
They say after dark the dawn
Let us keep that
They say the shadows of moonlight
Will roam and find rest
Let us keep that
They say the shadows under the rubbles
May not occur twice
Let us keep that
Or may they


NOTE: Kambui Hills is a range surrounding Kenema Town, the town where diamond is bought and sold in Sierra Leone.