SISSAY, Lemn


Let There Be Peace

Let there be peace

So frowns fly away like albatross

And skeletons foxtrot from cupboards,

So war correspondants become travel show presenters

And magpies bring back lost property,

Children, engagement rings, broken things.

Let there be peace

So storms can go out to sea to be

Angry and return to me calm,

So the broken can rise up and dance in the hospitals.

Let the aged Ethiopian man in the grey block of flats

Peer through his window and see Addis before him,

So his thrilled outstretched arms become frames

For his dreams.

Let there be peace

Let tears evaporate to form clouds, cleanse themselves

And fall into reservoirs of drinking water.

Let harsh memories burst into fireworks that melt

In the dark pupils of a child’s eyes

And disappear like shoals of silver darting fish,

And let the waves reach the shore with a

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Inspire and be inpired

Open the dawn in the open sky
the laboratory - open the book, open the challenge, with open eyes. Open. Out. Look.

Open all minds, open all dreams, research, question Open all doors, open all senses

Open all defences, ask: What were these closed for? In the possibilities of light,

the nature of trust, the strength of unassailable us.

How strong the night lies as light aeriates the dark and atomic dreams multiply from a graphene heart

We who have walked the world in the name of here and where we came from

stand in this great city and say: I belong here, I belong

I bring my past, I bring my future, I bring my rights and I bring my song

I stand atop The University of Manchester - we belong here, we belong