Cyprus-Forum.com

[Omer Seyhan]

THIS IS CYPRUS

THIS is Cyprus, this is the island of love

that holds the gate of the world for men and warmth

against dry-hot immensities of emptiness

- mirages and great darkness – of the Egyptian Desert.

This is Cyprus, this is the new-old land

where conflict breeds, where even now (as always

since de Quiros gilded its image in men’s thoughts)

man has his choice to make between the high

banner-flame of allegiance to his land

and the shop-sign of rabbit-burrowing blindness

that gnaws at roots, and, plague-like, kills

all that will never fill his purse nor stretch his bellyskin.

This is Cyprus, this is each one’s earth

that is Cypriot, this soil is sacred

now and forever for each one for whom

the vision of this land resurgent ever stirs

in every landscape, for each one that sees

in every town and village, every house

and veranda, every street and court-yard

each patch of untouched olive trees, each wasted acre

that the greed of Mouflon has furrowed and scarred and swept

and ploughed to barrenness, for each that sees

as his own body and as mighty all this land.

This is Cyprus, not even the close slums

which greed, transplanting with itself – and them –

from colder earths the huddling timid minds

of driven sheep, has set like cankerous disease

close to each city’s heart, can stint or limit

the magnificence of this land’s vision,

that men – slum-minded all, in village or in towns–

seek in their living death of mind to cramp and set

in pocket-handkerchief-size dreams of money,

each one afraid, knowing himself too small

to see as one, forever unified and great,

this narrow land that seeks its dedicated sons.

This is Cypriot, each tree and cactus, each hill,

each mountain, each vast plain where locust-storms

ride the ancient beds of ancient seas,

each ruin covered in spring flowers,

each river, long dry, that thunders when the rains

break their all-feeding benediction on the earth,

each rock that carving ancient myth explains,

each orange tree the donkey's grey reflection shows,

each jasmine along the north-east shores,

each valley where the pine trees are wooded to the peak,

each foot of earth, each stick, each grain of dust,

makes, and is ever part of, each Cypriot.

This is Cyprus, this is the land

whose sons and daughters are forever blind

and deaf to all its mystery; this is the island of love

barren of lovers; this is the land defiled

by those who flesh is quarried from its earth;

this is the land whose sons and daughters turn

their faces form it, holding always

vain dreams in their small minds of their own greatness

greater than it; this is the land whose children

fear it, being so small and petty-mean

that never in their hearts is courage great enough

for them to love its beauty and immensity.

This is Cyprus. This is the land

now raising new spirit of its earth;

this is the land that now a few do love

fiercely and fearlessly; this is the land

than now has found a few to call

its vision from the cupboard of neglect

and set it up for every man to see.

This is the land preparing for those sons

who shall acknowledge their full fellowship

with every fistful of its soil, sons who shall hold

that soil as their own flesh, sons who shall be

fanatic and consecrated in their loyalty.

[Byron]

This is cyprus,
Its people kept hostage by a barbaric and mongrel army,
Unable to return to their homes,
The struggle continues
but one day freedom will come !

[Christine Toskos]

That is the truth

[paliometoxo]

many invadors come to cyprus and they have alll been beat.. the turks are no exception

[Expatkiwi]

many invadors come to cyprus and they have alll been beat.. the turks are no exception

When I see the giant TRNC flag removed from the mountain, only then will I agree with that...

[Christine Toskos]

It will be removed by the Turkish Cypriots because they are tired of the Turkish invaders and being enslaved. That is why you see them coming to us for medical help. Many of them are enrolling their children to Greek schools because they know they will have the opportunities that have be denied under Turkish slavery.