Ethiopianism Poetics: Ethiopia, author unknown

[kesate berhan]

ETHIOPIA (author unknown)

I love you, Ethiopia,
Your mountains and your streames
Your wide and lovely crater lakes
Your forests and your dreams.
I love each yellow Maskal flower
Each valley golden brown
Each small and gentle clustered hamlet
And the ever-growing town
I love each braying donkey gray
Each sheep with curly tails
The gay and chattering monkey clan
The hyenals nocturnal wail
I love each little shepherd boy
Each brown-skinned, tiny god
With pearly teetht and shining eyes
Who o'er the earth has trod
I love the red-gold dusty devils
Which spiral in the sky,
The lonely bush with its wealth of flowers
I love each sturdy water carrier
The clouds which ride so high
With beauty unsurpassed
Who saves my harassed soul from madness
With her shadow of the past
I love the shimmering waters blue
Of the Red Sea at Massawa
The pearly mosques and sparkling white
The glow of the sunset hour
I love the arid, burning desert
The stately caravan
The heat of the nearing mid-day sun
The picturesque camel man
I love perhaps the best of all
Old Yerer, tall, forlorn
Stark against the winter sky
Smoking in the early dawn
As I leave you, Ethiopia
My heart is torn in twain
You are my soul, my world of dreams
My happiness, my refrain.