This daily dinning noise sounds painful

I do force this machine to work hard

Yet it may be my end some day 

Behind the turning turbine, I hear a call

Something tells me gravely and sadly

Boy, your time shall come here as well

The machine you force to work so tediously

May call you home to your fore fathers

 

If that happens, if it calls me home

I have a wish to make, before I go

Don't lay me to rest here, take me home

I am Acoli from Pader, a born of Lamogi

Don't lay me to rest  among these people

Who know not my customs

They are green and blue and yellow

They may tread on me and laugh

 

If my day comes please take me home

Under the mango trees near our small hut

There I was born and raised

Loving unconditionally

Running and playing naked in simplicity

And there, my friends, I should rest too

Don't fear that place, it is home

Yes, it is home where I must rest at last

 

You will find my mother under those trees

She will be bare chested, always she is

Under that tree, be careful with the news

Don't be careless lest she falls and faints

Sit down and in a soft voice tell her about me

Your son tried his best mother, you are to say

From that point two men hold her down 

For she may run away and never return home, mad.

 

Under those trees, you will find my father

He, sitting on a round stool scratching his grey beards

He is lost in thought, looking distantly in no direction

Friends, he is imagining when I am coming home

Your son tried his best father, you are to say

Tell hime I am home now, no more worries

Only that I am home postrate, not walking any more

He will understand, he knows his son so well

 

Don't lay me to rest here,

For these commands won't end

The people who stand aside and command

Will continue to do so, and long time 

While my likes and the blood of my origin rot

All in the heat of the turbine, my bread, my end

This is mediocrity, they say so don't lay me here

If that shoould happen, don't blame the machine

Just don't lay me to rest here