"Galileo's Apologies"

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin
Poet Laureate:

(August 17, 1936-

February 25, 2006)

"Ethiopia’s premier versatile and prolific man of letters. For half a century now he has been continuously productive as poet, playwright, essayist, social critic, philologist, historiographer, dramatist, synthesist, peace activist, artistic director...on matters national, continental and global. Even if he has yet to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he has often been more appreciated and duly honored abroad than in his own land. Perhaps this is in keeping with that old Ethiopian saying to the effect that ‘a prophet is often not esteemed in his own country.’ In this day and age, when most of us have been preoccupied and indeed consumed by wars and rumors of wars in Ethiopia-Eritrea and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, it seems as though there is nothing else of positive value or of grave concern that deserves or commands the attention of Ethiopians. Today we shall take time out from violence and war and reflect on the life and works of Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin who is a living legend, a literary hero, and as one observer described him recently, Ethiopia’s 'biblical sage'."

(more... http://www.ethiopians.com/tsegaye/ )

Selected Poems:

Dreamer

A lover love rejected
With a spirit dejected,
A monk God-forsaken

Whose total Faith is shaken,
Are less lost than dreamer

Into whose peace a " question "
Plunged like a knife
And woke him to life,
To search, to find his way
To dodge, to fight his way
NOT dream it away !

Guilty?
On the grave of my friend, I stood.
For blood and flesh, I stayed . . .
And with faith I prayed, and prayed;
For blood and flesh, he was robbed . . .
And with doubt, I hoped, and I hoped.
On the grave of my friend, as I stayed...
On my future, I brood.
I stood on the grave of a man.
A tomb-stone of a man, I burdened.
The grave of a man, I murdered:
And with hope, my future, I sketched,
When with prayer, my killer hand, I stretched.
On the tomb-stone, of the man, I murdered: . . . Urrahh!!! I won!
On my victim's carcass, I climb. While on his tomb, I tread ...
My bloody fingers, I spread: Thus to repent, to justify, I have tried ...
While I hoped, and prayed, I have cried.
And I won, my daily wine, and bread! ... Is it a crime?

Galileo's Apologies
Give me not your cold shoulders,
Life is but useless if too cool;
Hate me not dear friends,
For I am but an ambitious fool
Whose dream goaded by fate.
His time-record in destiny's file.
Till eternity inserted: and yet,
Has proved but an imbecile.
Judge me not dear children.
For my cause is but the better
Of your own end and of our Earth,
Yet made me but, fortune teller.
Thus beware to read, honourable babes,
While keeping me in your hatred cage
In the Book of Time, in To-morrow Tell,
My apologies on the last page.

I Remember
When, " God! ", I said," why don't You let me choose?"
"More castles high and wide, with gardens full of charm,
Fountains here and there, more acres of good farm,
More golden rings to wear, spectacles and shoes,
All these you can; yet have nothing to lose.
Because I know, by one push of Your arm,
To give, and cause all people to alarm;
As life is short I should always amuse!"
Then walking out for air I met a child.
Who lying by the road in ragged dress,
With voice so dead and words he cannot press,
To passers-by who looked at him as wild,
Stated thus, " I am very soon to die," I have no home, no food, no foot, no eye! "

For more biographical information and further links to Tsegaye's work, See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsegaye_Gabre-Medhin