The hour was: a child's legs
Stolen from him by napalm
and when he went on walking
They even stole his road.
The hour was an Arab O
The hour was the birth of truth.

The hour struck … it struck
But the people's protector was in a bar,
Suppliant to a mistress
Making her a gift of the people's blood,
roses watered with humiliation
never fed by garden soil.
The hour was a gigantic O
The hour was the birth of truth.

The hour was
that nails should sprout on trees,
on stone, on flowers, on water,
that a million men might conceive—
So a great idea might be born,
So a revolution might be born.
But the hour was
it was
The hour was sterile
Then the hour in Jerusalem became
virgins who got pregnant in seconds
gave birth in seconds
and in seconds
the hour in Jerusalem turned into struggle
and a minute gained
The hour strikes … it strikes
The hour cries with love, with torture, with desire
The legless child walks on his hands and eyes
To carry dreams, bread and greetings to a fighter.
He whispers the simplest prayer a child ever said:
“They've killed my legs, they've stolen my road,
And so I must stay here
Changed into a grave and fight.”

The hour struck its final chimes
then died.
Jerusalem had no more need of clocks,
A little girl destroyed their clocks.
Her age—a hundred million victims,
A nation which despite
Sedation and stupor
Will one day rise in wrath.

Whenever a child passes those
Who occupy and rule Jerusalem,
A child, a little girl,
Their eyes and their devices
Search in her breast, her womb, her mind
for weapons, for a bomb.
And when they discover nothing (O)
they insist: “This little girl was born here,
All those born in Jerusalem
Shall be made into bombs.”
And they are right.
All born in the shadow of bombs
Shall become bombs.