SONGS FROM EXILE

 

You Will remain lonely

As you are.. single..!

The long nights harm

The sleepless eyes

And the wine remains

The only mate of drunkards

And you.. Lonely as you are..

Navigating the seas ..

Crossing cities..

And you come and go

As you always are.. Alone ..!

 

Perhaps the countryside

Is singing that resembles

The singing of nightingales..!

And you, so crazy

With the love of the homeland,

You also love the sand..

Love orchards..!

This is why you were amazed..

And protected your hands

When the creak of chains

Were too much to stand.

And you became lonely

While « Fairuz » sings for you

“The neighbor of the valley”

Singing it as a struggling memory.

 

Are you Still requesting

The end of darkness ..?!

While your shadow is still running

Behind the tents ..?!

How would you be able to sing

Morning lights’ songs,

While your heart is shouting:

«O! You Sleepers!?»

 

You are prisoner to the lust of travels..

And to the melodies of poetry

A cover or palms!

Women or deserts!

And the beautiful voice

A sad and bare sound

Is to you like an Achilles’ tendon

Thrown by exile’s lands …!

 

And you will remain lonely

As you already are alone ..!

From the winds you come

To the winds you walk

Stranger as a wandering grain of sand

In the wind you grow

And in the wind you suffer

Fugitive like a rhyme in a poem

And you ask for the land of « Saguia »

Asking the clouds about your land of love

« – Is my homeland’s dawn ahead?

Answer  me so as I survive.

Answer  me so as I heal

My country is my wounds…

My wounds are my country… »

But no one gives you answers.

Nor the clouds confessed.

Neither the morning came.

Neither questions healed your wounds

And there is no land for you

Your home is the wind ..

It is your exile .. /

Your shelter .. /

Your life .. /

Your trip .. /

Your return .. /

There is no land for you ..

Except for this mirage

No hugs for you ..

Except for the hugs of absence

Lonely like Odysseus you are

Struggling against nostalgia to the homeland

Struggling against the waves

Struggling against separation from your people

And deceit of comrades

And the curse of the Security Council of  hypocrisy

Lonely …

Strange …

Displaced …

A fugitive …

No land for you

No .. And you don’t have rights

To live without torment

And without destruction.

Yet you’ll read a newspaper one day

And hear in another a resolution.

But what happened ..?!

From the wind you come

To the wind you walk

Stranger like a fugitive grain of sand.

Is it that you will remain alone

In the wind you grow

And in the wind you suffer

Fugitive like a rhyme in a poem

And what happened ..?!

From the wind you come

To the wind you walk

Is it really that you will remain lonely ..?!

In the wind you grow

With the wind you suffer..?!

And remain alone..?!

And suffer alone..?!

And suffer …

And remain …

Lonely ..

And suffer

And remain

Lonely As you are ..?!

 

 

Copyright © 2016. Hamza Lakhal

Translated from Arabic by Malainin Lakhal

Todos los derechos reservados. All rights reserved