by Abdelmoneim Mohammed Rahamtalla
June 2020

My colour is my home
I seek refuge in god from the indecent humankind/hearts/stones
And in the name of god, who raise the sky and of the ways of ascent,
and make it beautiful as planets, stars and moons
In the name of the salty water/sweet, blue as Nile/rain Sea
In the name of air/galaxy,
wends and breeze, spring and autumn, cold and hot
In the name of speech, symbolic, direct and free
In the name of arts, poetry writing, prose and narrative poetry
In the name of life/knowledge, passion of butterfly and honey bees
(O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. Verily, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.)
In the name of all languages and paradises
In the name of Adam and Adamata, horse/cow/date/elephant/antelope
plain, mountain, a palm tree and a bird.
In the name of diversity and linguistics, forms and meanings, the evident and the immanent
In the name of peace, beauty and roses...
Roses/plants are humankind; they have dignity/human colours:
Like you and me, they are red, brown, white, green, yellow and black…
Like you and me…
Blue roses… white, salt, snow and sugar,
Date fruit/a distilling arak, and the meze is black olives,
…that smoothen stressed faces and please the soul…
Ethiopian coffee beans is a prophet and people.
Herbs, green trees carpet the shadow with sleepiness,
Brown bread, white, yellow like chees, red and white meet, wine
Blues music…
Golden wheat and sun/mother warm the universe/colours:
The perfection of universe and its balance in all god verses… environment/earth/mankind:
And like you and me, black, white, brown, red, green, yellow…
(Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and we produce thereby fruits of varying colours? And in the mountains are tracts, white and red of varying shades and [some] extremely black.)   
Does the cry of a newborn have the same sound/taste/colour?
Does breast milk have the same taste in this and that mouth?
Like you and me, yellow, black, red, green, white and brown…
Hearing, sight, heart and love are one god in all nations,
So who disturbed the serenity?
Who repatriated this virus?
Who did Corona virus, and turned off the bright colours?
Colour became gloomy…
The soul, people,
earth are ours, earth is home
With us… the glory of earth will raise and the human kingdom.

Translation from Arabic into English by Urwa Darwish.
Click here to read the original version of the poem.

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