Old Country

By Ramzi Albert Rihani

 

Crowds march with speculative looks
Putting their lives on the lines of a book
Like horses galloping towards the unknown
Risking their epitaph on their gravestone

 

Their hope grows beyond imagination
As if tomorrow is filled with anticipation
Nothing will make them stop or impede
Not even fire, floods, or rattlesnake weed

 

Women are no longer the ball and chain
They become heroines in the streets of courage and pain
Freedom knocks but seldom touched
Like a nightly ghost that can never be crushed

 

Time goes by dripping in months and months
And their lives, unplugged, refuse to surrender
Yesterday’s crowd has become numb
Like the evenness of an orchid, it will remember

 

Ramzi Albert Rihani is a Lebanese American writer. His poems have been published in several publications including Poetic Sun, Goats Milk Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine, Ariel Chart International Journal, and The Silent Journey Anthology. He is a published music critic, wrote and published a travel book The Other Color - a Trip Around the World in Six Months (FMA Press, 1984).