A Tombstone of Tears

A tombstone from tears of words

A translation of a verse by the poet:
Yahya Assamawi
The translator: Freeyad Ibrahim


(1)



Now I have one more reason

to not betray my homeland:

the quilt of its thick soil

in which my mother wrapped herself

in her grave yesterday!



(2)



Only the axe of death

can pull out the trees by their roots

With a single strike



(3)

Before her departure,

I was alive sentenced to death

After her parting

I ve become dead sentenced to life.





(4)





Why have you departed?

Before you gave birth to to me, O! my mother

are there no other stairs save death

in order to ascend towards the Kingdom of God

(5)



In the marketplace of Adelaide

My kind friends have found

All the requirerments needed for the council of solace:

Black textile.. Quranic verses for the walls..

Arabic coffee.. (dilla)s , coffee pitchers, and the beakers..

buchuur, Insence, and misk, the musk,

Except for one thing I lack yet:

A cup of tears - even one to hire

Whereby I may restore the wetness

To the clay of my eyes

Which are impending dryness









(6)



No gun-carriage had carried her coffin,

Nor a funeral march had been played for her..

My rustic country mother doesn t like to hear the cannons thunder.

Not only because it scares the sparrows,

But also

Because it reminds her of the oratorical ‘speeches of the leaders

Who have destroyed homeland..and displaced me...

Her coffin a taxicab had carried ,

Escorted by the eyes of the poor

And of the sparrows

And by plenty of orphans

led by my artificial legged brother

And two widowed sisters



(7)



The living beings are sleepnig on the ground

And the dead underneath it..

The differnce between them: the bed-place

And the kind of cushions and covers!



(8)



Her last wishes were:

I d be the one who the eyelids of her Tomb shall shut

My last dreams were

She might close my eylids with her own hands

Both of us failed to fulfil

a slight desire







(9)

Ye, the passerby : one moment please..

Would you take a memorial photo of me?

with the air first

and with myself next

then a collective one:

me togther with sorrow and solitud

And aother one of my mother sleeping in my heart



(10)



Glorious You are my God

Is it true that the torments of helfire

Could be fiercer than the agony I suffer

When it proved impossible to see off my mother

Alas ...

if only the postman of The Hereafter

Had put the letter in my life s mailbox

And not upon my mother s pillowI

(11)



My brothers, cover her with a thick quilt of dust

Lest she should hear my wailing

while I am screaming in the wilderness

Like a bitten child :" I want my mother"

then she is going to cry





(12)



You all whom I have angered once

Good friends..the mad ones.. greengrocers,

students, the chalk- colleagues and exile sidewalks:

Send me please your telephone numbers..

Because I want to apologize to you

Before I go to sleep

In my mother s bosom





(13)



And you, barbarians

Girdled with dynamites..and the car bomb drivers

And the bearers of cleavers and daggers

Suffice it be to explosions , no more clamour

My mother doesn t like noises

My goodhearted mother fears death no more

But she is worried about

the sparrows

for fear of the metallic sharp shards

And about the pulpit bukhuur, incense,

Because of the fires smoke



(14)

When I visit my mother

I ll strew over her tomb lots of wheat

My mother likes sparrows

Every dawn

She wakes up at their chirps..

And from her ablution water

she

Fills the clay vessel under the date palm of the house

Then scatters wheat with yellow corn



( 15)



When I was yet a little boy

She was taking me to the market with her

And into the houses of our neighours

And to the Imams

She did take me too

when she was visiting the shrines loaded with the scanty votive offers

Even when I was on the threshold of grief,

She won t travel except I was with her

So why did she travel alone to the Heavens

Probably

Beacuse she is ashamed of my own sins

Ah,

?Where can I ever find a mother like her

helping me washing my sins,

By means of her prayers kawthar*

when she spreads the prayer s rug



(16)

O my dear precious friends

Don t ask God to fill my plate with the bread of good health

Nor my mug with the euphoric pure water

Because I am now in need of

The patience of the desert sands against thirst

And the endurance of a mountain mule

And the dullness of a sheep



*sacred water-



translated by: Freeyad Ibrahim( Alzabarjad)

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