AL-MALAIKA, Nazik
Night Lover
You shadows of the night who hide away our hearts’ laments,
Look now and see this wandering ghost, its face so pale and lean
Like a strange apparition come to roam beneath your tent,
Carrying an oud in its right hand, singing to the unseen,
Unbothered by night’s stillness in the darkening ravine.
It is a woman, Night. The valley’s felt her in its shade.
When night approached and made her two eyes overflow with tears,
She took her songs of suffering and headed to the glade.
If only the songs on her lips, dear Night, could reach your ears,
If only you, Night, could discern her hopes, her dreams, her fears.
Seducing her with dark and quiet, nighttime drove her mad.
The silence, with its tempting beauty, made her young again.
She shed the coldness of a day whose path was bleak and sad,
And moved through this unhappy world with longing in her heart,
Sobs emerging from the oud, sighs emerging from the dark.
You, woman who loves night and all its lush ravines,
You’re nothing but a plaintive sigh when the world’s laughter rings.
This is the night: divine echoes, visions in blues and greens,
So pick up your oud from the grass, and hold it close, and sing,
Describe night’s art, its beauty, how it enchants everything.
What draws us to the sky, poet of perplexity?
Is it our youthful dreams, or poetic imagination?
Is it our love of the unknown? a night of misery?
Or is it the enchanted lights dancing on the horizon?
How strange, lyre of the evening, poet of tranquility.
Your specter wanders through a cloud, pale-colored and sublime,
ever exploring visions wrapped in swathes of darkened shadow.
They’re secrets, shadow-lover, overrunning their confines.
But mercy’s scarce for broken hearts, my poet; you should go.
Don’t ask the lightning for advice, what does its flashing know?
Strange, poet of perplexity—what has distracted you?
Why do you stand there dreaming like a ghost beneath the palms,
Holding your head between your hands, with darkness all around,
As though in thought, in sadness, and in silence you had drowned,
Not knowing dark’s temptation hides there, crouching, in the calm.
Listen—these are the storms, this is the thunder, hear it peal.
Turn back—you will not understand, no matter how you seek
We’ll never know what mysteries the folds of life conceal.
My girl, the storm knows nothing, though it rages, raves, and shrieks,
Have mercy on your heart, for these shadows will never speak.
Washing off Disgrace
“Mother!” a gasp, tears, and darkness
Blood gushed forth, and the stabbed body shook
And mud nested in the wavy hair
“Mother!” and none heard her, save the executioner
and tomorrow dawn will come and blossoms will wake
The twenty will cry out, and the enchanted hope
The meadows and flowers will respond:
She departed from us…. washing the shame away
And the savage executioner returns and meets the people
“Shame” and wipes his blade “we have shredded the shame”
“And returned virtuous, white in reputation, free”
“Oh lord of the tavern, where is the wine, and where is the cup”
“Bring forth the listless singer of fragrant breath”
“For her eyes I would sacrifice the Quran and destiny”
Fill your cups oh butcher
For the slaughtered woman [victim] of washing away the shame
And dawn will come and the girls will ask about her
“Wherever can she be” and the beast replies “we have killed her”
“A mark of shame on our foreheads we have washed away”
And the neighbours will tell of her dark story
Even the date trees will recite it in the neighbourhood
Even the wooden doors won’t forget it
Even the stones will whisper it
Washing away the shame, washing away the shame
Oh women of the neighborhood, oh girls of the village
We will knead the bread with the tears of our eyes
We will cut our braids and scald our hands
So there clothing can stay white and pure
No smile, no pleasures, no glance, for the blade
Watches us from the grasp of our fathers and brothers
For tomorrow who knows which desert conceals us, washing away the shamee
Cholera
in the night
listen to echoed moans as they fall
in the depths of the dark, in the still, on the dead
voices rise, voices clash
sadness flows, catches fire
echoed cries, stuttered cries
every heart boils with heat
silent hut wracked with sobs
spirits scream through the dark everywhere
voices weep everywhere
this is what death has done
they are dead, they are dead, they are dead
let the strained Nile lament over what death has done
in the dawn
listen to passing feet as they fall
in the still of the dawn, watch and hear the procession of tears
ten are dead, twenty dead
countless dead, hear the tears
hear the pitiful child
they are dead, many lost
they are dead, there is no future left
bodies strewn everywhere, everywhere the bereaved
not a moment to mourn, not a pause
this is death’s handiwork
they are dead, they are dead, they are dead,
all humanity suffers the crimes death commits
cholera
lies with corpses in terrible caves
death becomes medicine for eternity’s hush
cholera lies awake
unavenged, overflowing with hate
pouring over the Delta’s sweet soil
crying out, agitated, insane
it is deaf to the voices that mourn
as its talons leave scars everywhere
in the poor peasant’s shack, in the landowner’s house
nothing but cries of death, pouring out,
they are dead, they are dead, they are dead
as death takes its revenge wearing cholera’s face
silence, still
nothing left but the trace of Allahu akbar
as the gravedigger too lies in eternal sleep
there is no one to help
the muezzin is dead
who will eulogize them?
nothing left now but shuddering sobs
the poor child has no mother, no dad
and tomorrow disease will no doubt snatch him too
evil cholera, what have you done?
you’ve left nothing in Egypt but sadness and death
they are dead, they are dead, they are dead
this is what death has done, and my heart is in shreds
New Year
New Year, don't come to our homes, for we are wanderers
from a ghost-world, denied by man.
Night flees from us, fate has deserted us
We live as wandering spirits
with no memory
no dreams, no longings, no hopes.
The horizons of our eyes have grown ashen
the gray of a still lake,
like our silent brows,
pulseless, heatless,
denuded of poetry.
We live not knowing life.
New Year, move on. There is the path
to lead your footsteps.
Ours are veins of hard reed,
and we know not of sadness.
We wish to be dead, and refused by the graves.
We wish to write history by the years
If only we knew what it is to be bound to a place
If only snow could bring us winter
to wrap our faces in darkness
If only memory, or hope, or regret
could one day block our country from its path
If only we feared madness
If only our lives could be disturbed by travel
or shock,
or the sadness of an impossible love.
If only we could die like other people.
Translated from Arab by Rebecca Carol Johnson
Elegy for a Woman of No Importance
She died, but no lips shook, no cheeks turned white
no doors heard her death tale told and retold,
no blinds were raised for small eyes to behold
the casket as it disappeared from sight.
Only a beggar in the street, consumed
by hunger, heard the echo of her life—
the safe forgetfulness of tombs,
the melancholy of the moon.
The night gave way to morning thoughtlessly,
and light brought with it sound—boys throwing stones,
a hungry, mewling cat, all skin and bones,
the vendors fighting, clashing bitterly,
some people fasting, others wanting more,
polluted water gurgling, and a breeze
playing, alone, upon the door
having almost forgotten her.
Love Song for Words
Why do we fear words
when they have been rose-palmed hands,
fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,
and glasses of heartening wine
sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?
Why do we fear words
when among them are words like unseen bells,
whose echo announces in our troubled lives
the coming of a period of enchanted dawn,
drenched in love, and life?
So why do we fear words?
We took pleasure in silence.
We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.
We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,
crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.
We shackled the thirsty letters,
we forbade them to spread the night for us
as a cushion, dripping with music, dreams,
and warm cups.
Why do we fear words?
Among them are words of smooth sweetness
whose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips,
and others that, rejoicing in pleasure
have waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes.
Words, poetry, tenderly
turned to caress our cheeks, sounds
that, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling,
a secret ardor, a hidden longing.
Why do we fear words?
If their thorns have once wounded us,
then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks
and shed their sweet scent upon our desires.
If their letters have pierced us
and their face turned callously from us
Then they have also left us with an oud in our hands
And tomorrow they will shower us with life.
So pour us two full glasses of words!
Tomorrow we will build ourselves a dream-nest of words,
high, with ivy trailing from its letters.
We will nourish its buds with poetry
and water its flowers with words.
We will build a balcony for the timid rose
with pillars made of words,
and a cool hall flooded with deep shade,
guarded by words.
Our life we have dedicated as a prayer
To whom will we pray . . . but to words?
Who Am I ?
The night asks who am I ?
I am its secrets-anxious, black, profound
I am its rebellious silence
I have veiled my nature, with silence,
Wrapped my heart in doubt
And solemn, remained here
gazing, while the ages ask me,
Who am I ?
Thw wind asks who am I ?
I am its confused spirit, whom time has disowned
I, like it, never resting
continue to travel without end
continue to pass without pause
should we reach a bend
we would think it the end of our suffering
and then-void
TIme asks who am I ?
I, like it, am a giant, embracing centuries
I return and grant them resurrection
I creat the distant past
From the charm of the pleasant hope
And I return to bury it
to fashion for myself a new yesterday
whose tomorrow is ice.
The self asks me who am I ?
I, like it, am bewildered, gazing into shadows
Nothing gives me peace
I continue asking-and the answer
will remain veiled by mirage
I will keep thinking it has come close
but when I reach it- it has dissolved,
died, disappeared.
Love Song for Words
Why do we fear words
when they have been rose-palmed hands,
fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,
and glasses of heartening wine
sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?
Why do we fear words
when among them are words like unseen bells,
whose echo announces in our troubled lives
the coming of a period of enchanted dawn,
drenched in love, and life?
So why do we fear words?
We took pleasure in silence.
We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.
We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,
crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.
We shackled the thirsty letters,
we forbade them to spread the night for us
as a cushion, dripping with music, dreams,
and warm cups.
Why do we fear words?
Among them are words of smooth sweetness
whose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips,
and others that, rejoicing in pleasure
have waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes.
Words, poetry, tenderly
turned to caress our cheeks, sounds
that, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling,
a secret ardor, a hidden longing.
Why do we fear words?
If their thorns have once wounded us,
then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks
and shed their sweet scent upon our desires.
If their letters have pierced us
and their face turned callously from us
Then they have also left us with an oud in our hands
And tomorrow they will shower us with life.
So pour us two full glasses of words!
Tomorrow we will build ourselves a dream-nest of words,
high, with ivy trailing from its letters.
We will nourish its buds with poetry
and water its flowers with words.
We will build a balcony for the timid rose
with pillars made of words,
and a cool hall flooded with deep shade,
guarded by words.
Our life we have dedicated as a prayer
To whom will we pray . . . but to words?
Evening Thoughts
When night mantles the steppes
And clouds pass along the lines
Lefts over not but fearful silence
And gloominess fell under sulkiness wings
Left over not but pigeons wail
And – of rillets – whispers and moan
Of a passer-by in the darkness – the amble
Whose sound pass and calm down
Talk , I sit , to the night silence
And hue of grieved darkness , to eye
My song , I send , to the space
On every dolesome heart , I cry
To pigeon whisper , I lend ear
And at night , I hear the rain fall
And to moony moan in the dark air
Sing admist trees far – to – all
And of a far – gone mill , a sigh
Wail the night and grouch the dull
The chant for to hear that I
Refrain to warble behind the hill
I hearken to no sound but wail
And turn the eye to , but gloom , no colour
Clouds and silence with night's mournful
For I sense grief-struck , but no wonder
Like this evening , life I deem
Dim , the tone is lonely and dismal
Its men , in a morning , they dream
As pass through a night – deep and awful