Inch'Allah [French] [English translation]

I saw the Orient in its setting

With the moon for a banner

And I intended in a quatrain

To sing to the world its light.

But when I saw Jerusalem,

Poppy on a rock,

I heard a requiem

When I bent over it.

Do you not see, humble chapel,

You who whisper, "Peace on Earth"

That the birds hide with their wings

These fiery letters: "Danger: border"?

The path leads to the fountain

You would like to fill your bucket

Stop, Mary Magdalene

For them, your body is not worth the water.

Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah.

And the olive tree wept for its shadow,

His tender wife, his friend,

Who laid in the rubble,

Prisoner in an enemy land.

On a barbed wire thorn

The butterfly watched for the rose

People are so foolish

That they will repudiate me, if I dare.

God of hell or God of heaven

You who find yourself wherever you want

In this land of Israel

There are children who tremble.

Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah.

The women fall under the storm.

Tomorrow the blood will be washed away.

The road is made of courage,

A woman for a cobblestone.

But yes, I have seen Jerusalem,

Poppy on a rock.

I still hear that requiem

When I'm bending over it.

Requiem for six million souls

Who do not have their marble mausoleum

And who, despite the infamous sand,

Have made six million trees grow.

Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah, Inch'Allah.

• Artist:Katja Ebstein