If you were here (on the anniversary of your last trip)
Written by: Dr. Hassan Najmi (Moroccan poet and writer)
If you were here
You would say: Do not wait for the resurrection!
The Resurrection walks barefoot in the alleys of Gaza
Leaning on the ruins of houses
Baby names
As a father counts his extinguished lamps before sunset
You would have opened your notebook
And you bring out, is it not afflicted with the salt of smoke?
He does not see the road to Ithaca
Nor the broken doors in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood
And Penelope weaves the shrouds
To take care of those who ascended by threads of a long night
You would have glimpsed in the dark
Children's faces like the descendants of the Red Indians
They throw stones at the shadows of airplanes.
And they plant in the rubble
little rainbows
So that God, who sees their place, may see
If you were here, as I knew you, you would say:
I am not a war survivor
I will pass by War Street to bandage my hair
That war gave my language your names
And I deposited you in heaven
Not a single shell can reach it.
The poem is now wounded, our great poet
The sea is surrounded by enemies
And with a broken wave
Ulysses is no more
And Penelope burned the loom and the basket of threads.
To warm her orphans
Descendants of the Red Indians in GZAnd
They draw the sun on the standing walls.
So that the day does not go astray
We, shyly, try to do something.
As if we write the names of martyrs in the blowing wind
We are waiting for your hand to pass by
Above the hands of the clouds
To return to the world
Rhythm of the poem
About the author
