Dili November 1991
By Egas Alves
Today in my city the sky to be cloudy
To turn off in the view of the sunrise
The town apparently to be with sadness
What melancholy will appear to the people who are living there?
Today in my city all mothers kneeling
Crying with the hands open to heavens
"God, where my son?"
Only the blood to shed on the ground
In the graveyard Santa Cruz without the corpse.
Today in my city with blood and body
The young Timorese search the way to freedom
And so with blood and body the young Timorese
Writing to their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers
Once more the story of East Timor.
They mothers watering the flowers with tear drops
To scatter to the corpse without a gravestone
Their bodies disappear from our side
But they name to be in the wholeheartedly people Timorese
Today ...
12 November 1991, in Dili East Timor
[This poem was written by an East Timorese newly arrived in Australia as part of his English language class.]