Heritage

 

What a frustration; after all that warmness which overflowed me by falls of light, I find myself just a crippled shadow of war. I am the heir of green laughs. Here is my heart, look at it. Do you see anything except for drought? Here are my wails penetrating me like the feet of invaders which had drawn my rusty face. I am the corpse thundered by death fever. I lean down on barefooted roads as a stranger, nothing recognizes me but cold. In my darkened soul I cannot see but my groaning, my clothes are torn by stories by which I made a ragged shackle binding my lost islands. This is what I am: a dead mass dreaming of nothing. My ancestors inherited me insanity. I am, by their favor, just a heap of dark remnants, whose ghost rides on me as a blind horse so that I am good only in clashing with every palm tree, whose fruits are breezy honey. I do not see all that glory, but I see only a stone bleeding my feet, a harsh trunk cleaving my head, and my grandfathers' tales telling me what they saw when their heads were immersed in troubled water.

·       Translated from Arabic by: Fareed Ghanem

Trees

This ungrateful city speaks slowly , not out of shyness because of her short garments , but because its suitcase is overburdened with blood. Bitterly I have been crying  since the time I saw her. I cry for my dear trees , for Iam a man from the wild , a man who knows the sounds of animals but not pure like them . Thus bears are not coarse or brown , but soft and rosy balloons. As well , an owl  is not blind or ominous , but it has a silver heart through which  she sees the truth . If only you know how friendly she is! She used to talk to me about the stories of the ancestors. Rootless and homeless Iam now . I used to live in a warm cottage over a tree.. I used to smile .. to laugh in the morning.. and I used to sit cheerfully by a pool whose name I no longer  remember. For this city slapped me with her hard hands and made me forget every beautiful thing. I forgot my colour and voice.  A dumb man now I am , with no colour, with no voice and with no tale. A  very sad man now Iam . I never know anything about  the spring  and  I never remember my dear trees .

* Translated by : Fathia Asfour , Palestinian poet & translator .