Rakasa'T Masr….(The Egyptian Belly Dancer) Poem by saadat tahir

Thousand ripples on the body of Nile.
Eager eyes scarce rest a while.

Slowly meanders and circles around.
To skirt and girdle many a mound!

Smoothly glides, the glimmers blind,
Prances without her soul's mind.

Gyrates and frolics, spreading smiles,
decked her bosom in a hundred styles.

Gurgles and intones her lamenting song.
Ogled and ravished by a hundred strong.

Alien the vessels; that ply her deep.
Scant the tears; that a tragedy weep.

Upon her soul, gaudy praises heap,
millennial debris at her bosoms keep.

In her cleave thrust Sinai's knife.
Time, cheaply, sold in a festering strife.

Northern scourges from south and seas.
Westerly winds wrench easterly fees.

Her heaving chest, pinned dubious stars.
Thrown at her; not won in wars.

**Zaie ille rakasat ala al siliem, hea.
Lalafooq shafooha wale ille tahat shafooha.

To a valiant people, a hush bestowed,
Wishes and visions below deck stowed.

Caged in an era of hieroglyphically cues.
centuries she awaits, her baked sinew.


original
saadat tahir
22 July,2k10
Islamabad


*Rakasa't Masr….
The Egyptian belly dancer.

**"Zaie ille rakasat ala al siliem, hea.
Lalafooq shafooha wale ille tahat shafooha."

An age old Egyptian saying, roughly translated:
Like the dancing girl that dances on a stair, she!
unappreciated and unseen by those above and those below her.