It’s been nearly a month now that Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s been in prison — beaten in his own home and dragged off — for violating a new Egyptian law that criminalizes most protests:
It was two years ago that poet Abdel Rahman al-Abnoudi wrote “The Prisoners’ Laughter” in solidarity with Abd el-Fattah, who was then detained (since October) after the violence at Maspero. During those months in prison, Abd el-Fattah missed the birth of his son Khaled.
Aisha El-Awady, with assistance from Ahdaf Soueif, translated an excerpt for Egypt Independent. From the poem:
And the night, your partner in patience on this journey,
sings … and the night is inky in its darkness
its songs of suffering passed down from those who came before.
And:
The cry is low but it shakes the universe,
the fool warns the rose: “hide your color.”
What does the ox know about garden breeze?
I’m reminded of Nazim Hikmet’s prison poems.