Homelands

==================== Homelands Arabic poem by: Adel Said* Translated into English by: Inaam Al-Hashimi (Gold_N_Silk) ===================== At the end of the line I stand As should a professional homeless do Exactly at the end of the line Before the committee on homelands distribution Among those who fall in the overflow Over the needs and capacity of time, place, Maps, Population records, And cemeteries. At the end of the line I stand Hanging like a teardrop in a funeral Collecting what have fallen of my years, My fables And my extinct dreams, In the bundle of my childhood that missed her doll And my deferred share of my mother’s tenderness. I have a flavor the midwife failed to sever With the umbilical cord In my heart, there is still a nursery rhyme About a duck swimming in a river And a songs about a fair maiden’s tear dripped down with kohl And my fingers are still trembling In fear of the lesson and the swish of the teacher’s ruler. I have in the piggy bank of my life Volumes about hunger and wars of social classes Burned by the fascists Who also snuffed out the tears of forbidden love. I have in the piggy bank of my life Dates I saved of palm tree’s yearning for the land And some palm pollen dust still traveling in my lungs. I have no signs of prophecy on my forehead And no halos of saints But my homeland that’s sitting there Amidst the committee on the homelands distribution Will recognize me And I'm in the queue I will not compete with the homeless comrades For their homelands And will not accept that illustrious one on the right And not that opulent one on the left I’ll accept only that one, That one whose head is a palm tree And whose arms are two rivers. - You , O Mister! You who was at the end of the line, You haven’t been recognized By any of the homelands gathered in the committee, The exiles snuffed out your flavor And withered your songs; Despite the high level of adoration in you No homeland on earth Understands your language. - Even that one? ! - Even that one .. And out of pity We decided to grant you a berth, A berth that will never come to an end You will waste on it All that’s left in your lifetime’s piggy bank Of tears, Of dreams loitering outside the fence of life And of years flying, like neglected pieces of paper, Out of the window of history! =========== Translated by: Em. Prof. Inaam al-Hashimi USA * Adel Said is a poet from Iraq who resides in Norway