“Cranes”
(Translation revised by Robert Nviiri on 26th May 2005)
It seems to me, sometimes, soldiers,
Who didn’t return from the bloody fields,
Didn’t lie dead in our land, a single moment,
But transformed into white Cranes.
All along, from time immemorial,
They’re flying, calling out to us from afar,
Not that, we often ruefully,
Keep our silence, glaring up in the sky.
The crane formation, is flying, wearily in the sky,
Flying in the fog, till dusk.
And in this formation, is left a minute gap,
Probably, this is a place reserved for me.
A day will come, when together with the cranes,
I will soar in the same blue skies,
Calling out from the sky, in bird language,
All to whom, I left on earth.
