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.
saadat tahir
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rakasa-t-masr-the-egyptian-belly-dancer/
