An Attempt to Voice

 

 

Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

 

 

 

  1

   Are the occasions of my loss and exhaustion

   So few to justify, my voice, that you also

   Become lost and exhausted?

 

  2

   You, my voice, were my throat’s nightingale.

   Now as you have soared further away

   My throat  has appeared to my eye-witness

   As a cold cage of iron.

 

  3

   Nobody can help me in my disaster.

   The doctors remained silent.

   The medicines became mute.

   The prayer trembled between my fingers.

   The only thing on the phone line was my tears

   Shouting: hello, hello.

 

  4

   As the pit of my grave deepens more and more

   The poetry I write grows deeper and deeper

   What an irony!

 

  5

  Friends, Pay attention!

  The nightingale flew away

  And the crow laughed.

 

  6

 When will you come down?

 Tell me: when will you come down?

 Or am in front of me

 Find myself dying member by member?

 

  7

My voice, the bird, come down!

I will not whip you as a slave.

I will not let you thirst to death

Nor shout at you as a mad man.

I will not ask you to sing needlessly nor to protest

Nor to part with the text

When the text gets stupid.

Light down, Bird!

I will not let Sophocles pull out his creatures’ eyes

On the stage of my blood

Nor At-Tawhidi 1 burn his books every night

In the desert of my dream

Nor Al–Maarri 2 die alone

As I do

And as you do.

 

 

 *********************

 

 1: At-Tawhidi is a great Arabic philosopher who burns his book at the end of his life.

2: Al–Maarri is a famous, blind Arabic poet.

 

( T M )

 

 

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