To Aleppo: The City of Song
To the city of sacred song
where music flows as blood
the world laments your travails
You once taught the world to sing
now the world turns harsh
and condemns your songs of praise
concerning itself of external politics
however, the melody stays the same
merely the tones and words have changed
You have been pillaged and rubble remains
the Ouds have been banished and replaced
by the harsh whisperings of banal weapons
shrapnel shots and flying bullets replace the Daf
giving rise to the numbering casualties of false music
To you, whom the world forgot until recently
the world regrets to inform you
help will not come from any means but sympathy
(and even that is in moderation) and so I suggest
that you change the war song to a song of the peoples.
To the city of sacred song
where music flows as blood
the world laments your travails
You have spread beauty far and wide
encircling the divine through your mystic songs
you have taught the world from ancient times
and still you teach the world the import of endurance
taking drastic and sporadic changes in like manner
ceasing never to death until you sang the song of life
So I request that you sing on and the world will hear!
Rise up and sing aloud for all to hear
the passions in the voice of your song
shall endear the cause of your tearful dirges
and be determined never to be separated
from your love and song, for life is a song
and so too is death a song devoted to life!
Cease not to sing your song, brothers and sisters
cease not, for to cease in the singing of life
is to endure the tragic loss of meaning in death
your songs, though grave they have now become,
hold truer devotions than the purity of our tears
let the wrath of percussive bullets come to rest
and the harmonies of forgiving hearts take over
allow the flowing nature of peace to take up your song
and reflect upon the recuperative waters of echoing memories!
To the city of sacred song
where music flows as blood
the world laments your travails
Echoes have finally landed on our shores
from the distant lands of mystical song
we have finally awoken to the tearful elegies
that the soul of song now sings
the world now joins the refrain of your song
igniting the visions of your holy song!
We now take up your call to sing
and in profaned melodies strike the band
tempting the world to let loose the intricate weapons
for the purity and sacredness of simple instruments
place the candle that lights life’s love
deep within the soul of your song and sing on!
Take rest in the wisdom that you dolefully sing
for the world of grandeur is built upon the ruins
and the blood that strife and progression eagerly pour
the beauty that was once your home cannot be deminished
not can the purity be blighted but sing on your song of life
and the evolution of your purity will come full cycle
as the world sits and watches and listens to your song!
To the city of sacred song
where music flows as blood
the world laments your travails
