BELONG by Lemn Sissay

Have you seen the churches of lalibella

Swam in the warm springs of Addis Ababa

Have you heard the reaching Nile

Of the bible and the Koran

My Abyssinia

 

Have you heard whispering widow peaks of sand

Seen the reeling rainbows as Victoria falls

Felt the mists on the Simien mountains

And the dust clouds of Harare's hyenas call

 

And did you see the gentle man taken

Then imprisoned for twenty five years

Who walked out of chains and became president

And who faced down the world's fears

 

Did you see his example to the world

How he embraced his adversary

Spoke of unassailable truth and reconciliation

 

Then we flounder in wars' anniversary

 

Hold me while spirits of the past &

Rivers of blood run through me

All this past feeds this present

And brings the truth into me

 

His story your search, his journey ours Something rings true inside and strong

I Stand atop Piccadilly Tower and sing I belong. I belong.

 

I the Mogadishan who knows troubled waters

I the Belfast man who knows troubled cities

I the Ethiopian who knows troubled lands

I the Serbian who crosses troubled seas

 

Who walked through darkened valleys

Under the shadows of death and bled

And who lay amongst the freshly killed

And in fear of tears played dead

 

Those who have cried cities sobbed roads

In the name of here and where they came from Stand with children atop Bridgewater Hall

And sing I belong here I belong

 

I am the blackest blackest blackest man

The tongue twists the skin dark I moved next door to the whitest poet In John Cooper Clarke

 

I'm buried in the cemetery where Morrissey walked

In the earth from where grew stone roses

I am the seamstress for Manchester's dream coat

I designed the clothes for Moses

 

I am the PSV, the sanctuary the kitchen

I am the reno red rhythm the bull ring's blues

I am the dread in its red and for all that's said Wherever I go I am you

 

I grew in the villages of Lancashire

You stood on my horizon since birth

The reason I came from to Manchester

Is because it's the greatest place on earth

 

I bring my past I bring my future I bring my rights and I bring my song I stand atop the Hacienda and shout

We belong Here.

We belong.

 

Lemn Sissay was commissioned by Manchester Literature Festival to write this poem in response to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's era-defining I Have a Dream speech for a celebratory programme co-produced with Manchester Camerata.

 

Copyright © Lemn Sissay

Done