Qasr El Nil Bridge

Come, tell me, Ibrahim, about this day that you’ll remember

Tell the story over to be sure it really happened

How you gathered in a circle to protect your kneeling brothers

Amid the howling of the sirens and the stutter of the gunfire

Ahmed shaking hands coming late into the Square

Clean clothes and looking good for the People’s Revolution

For you cannot choose a time you may be chosen for a martyr

Pushing through the soldiers, smile as wide as ever

And at night on the great river the party boats pass

And the music and lights float away in the darkness

We’re sailing with only the sound of our voices and the water

And the man pulls on his cigarette and pulls the boat round

And we all fall forward, tumbling and laughing

And the bright-eyed boy watches his father

Listening and feeling and learning to read the wind

250 miles south-west and into the Sahara

The white stone figures tower away to the horizon

I’m like a pawn in a chess game gazing up in fear

For in these great games of power, they sacrifice their children

And in the black velvet night, we built our little fire

And watched the desert foxes daring to come closer

Our broken conversations eaten by the silence

Just the crackle of the flames and a billion stars above us

And they tell me god is great but this I’ve never doubted

We each find wonder in the sky and the mountains

In the waves of people gathered and waiting

Listening and feeling and learning to read the wind

Lazy flies, sugar sweet teas

Winter chill, flame-fire trees

The great eucalyptus watching and waving

As the crowds come now from every direction

They tell me god is great but this I’ve never doubted

We each find wonder in the sky and in the mountains

In the hot scalding winds that will come from the desert

Hot enough for drying all the blood that has fallen

And at night on the great river the party boats pass

And the music and lights float away in the darkness

We’re sailing with only the sound of our voices and the water

And the man pulls on his cigarette and pulls us around

And we all fall forward, tumbling and laughing

And the bright-eyed boy watches his father

Listening and feeling and learning to read the wind