GeorgeNicolasEl-Hage.com
email
  • Professional Profile
    • Who is George Nicolas El-Hage
  • Publications
    • "Aqlam Muhajirah" The voice of the New Pen League (NPL)
    • Literary Criticism >
      • Books (English) >
        • A Labor of Love: Our Lebanon Family Home Renovation Project
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
        • Eliya Abu Madi: The Distinguished Poet of al-Rabita al-Qalamiya
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume One: Pre-Islamic to the Abbaasid Age
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume Two: Andalusia to the Modern Age
        • William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: The Man Versus the Legend
        • Essays on Literature and Language
        • Ibn al-Farid's "Khamriyya" ("Ode on Wine")
        • Nizar Qabbani: Women in My Poetry and in My Life
        • Nizar Qabbani: My Story with Poetry - "An Autobiography"
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of An Indifferent Woman
        • Ghada al-Samman's Beirut '75: An Autobiographical Interpretation
        • English Translation of Selected Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
        • Khalil Hawi: Letters of Love and Life
        • Immortal Quotes from Ameen al-Rihani’s Masterpiece The Book of Khalid
        • Ameen al-Rihani: Eastern and Western Figures
        • Ameen al-Rihani’s The Register of Repentance: Four Short Stories and a Play
        • Selected Letters of Ameen al-Rihani: Translated with an Introduction and Notes
        • Ameen al-Rihani: You...The Poets
        • Ameen al-Rihani: My Story with May
        • Ameen al-Rihani: The Muleteer and the Priest
      • Books (Arabic) >
        • al-Zajal al-Lubnani wa Zaghloul al-Damour fi Beit Meri: (Lebanese Zajal and Zaghloul al-Damour in Beit Meri)
        • Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan: (An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
        • al-Nabi bayna 'adu al-Masih wa al-Insan al-Ilah
        • Sahifat "al-Risala" al-Lubnaniya al-Mahjariya: (The "al-Risala" Newspaper and the Lebanese Press in Diaspora)
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran wa William Blake: Sha'ira al-Ru'ya: (Gibran Kahlil Gibran and William Blake: Poets of Prophetic Vision)
        • The Trilogy of Heroism, Redemption, and Triumph: The Press in Diaspora, Khalil Hawi, Zaghloul al-Damour
    • Textbooks & Articles on Teaching & Learning Arabic >
      • marHaba III: A Course in Levantine & Modern Standard Arabic (LMSA) >
        • marHaba III: PART ONE Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART TWO Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART FOUR Audio Files
      • marHaba II: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect - Intermediate Level >
        • A Companion Book to marHaba II: English Translation & Transliteration of All Lessons in marHaba II
      • marHaba: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect >
        • marHaba: Practice Workbooks
      • MABROUK: A Course in Modern Standard Arabic (Elementary & Intermediate Levels) >
        • Study Guide: MABROUK
      • The Story of Sami and Warda
    • Lebanese Nursery Rhymes
    • Books (Poetry in English/Arabic) >
      • Love Surpassed: A Book of Poetry
      • Letters to My Son: An Immigrant's Saga
      • Lebanese Hymns of Love and War
    • Books (Poetry in Arabic) >
      • Love Poems from Beirut
      • Awdat al-Faris wa Qiyamat al-Madina
      • al-Ghurba wa Mawasim al-Dhalam
      • Law Kunti Li
      • Qasa’id Bila Tarikh (Undated Poems) >
        • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Maw’id wa-liqa’
      • anti wal atfaalu fi Beirut: You and the Children in Beirut
      • You and the Children in Beirut
    • Poems (English) >
      • To Mary Ann with Love: A Book of Poetry
      • Birth of a Princess
      • Forty Years of Bliss
      • Thinking of You
      • You are My Christmas
      • A Poem for Mother's Day
      • To Mary Ann on Her Birthday
    • Poems (Arabic) >
      • Arabic Poems in MSA >
        • Beirut Speaks - song
        • A Tribute to Beirut
        • Lubnaniyat
        • The Garden of Visions
        • Najwa
        • Kunna ibtada’na
      • Arabic Poems in Lebanese Dialect >
        • Hilwit libnan
    • My Poetry (Translated from Arabic to English) >
      • Beirut Speaks
      • The Book of Death, #28
      • Journey of Illusion
      • Letter to a Country With No Frontier
      • A Letter to the Children of Qana
      • My People
      • You, Beirut and the Children
      • Introduction to If You Were Mine
      • Sufiya: A Mystical Poem
      • Surprise Attack
      • Exile
      • Chariot of Light
    • My Translations of Other Poets'/Writers' Works >
      • May Ziyadeh: The Return of the Wave
      • Said Akl: When Lebanon Speaks
      • Ameen Albert Rihani: A Train and No Station
      • Mikhail Naimy: Once Upon A Time
      • Mikhail Naimy: Abu Batta and Other Stories
      • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Inspired by Christ
      • Mikhail Naimy: Sab‘un (Seventy) An Autobiography
      • Mikhail Naimy: al-Ghirbal (The Sieve): Selections Translated into English with an Introduction
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: A Loaf of Bread (al-Raghif)
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Lame Boy and Other Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: Faces and Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: The Red Prince - A Lebanese Tale
      • Maroun Abboud: Tales from the Village
      • al-Rihaniyyat
      • Munajayat Al-Sab‘in
      • Mahmud Darwish’s poem, “Antithesis”
      • ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’s: The Byzantine Poems of Abu Firas
      • Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashir
    • Personal Reflections >
      • First Impressions of Lebanon in June 2013
      • The Collapse of a Tradition
  • Professional Activities
    • Lectures
    • Poetry Readings
    • Interviews
    • Conferences
    • Memberships/Committees
    • Management Enrichment
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Contact Information
Picture
Letter to a Country With No Frontier

Stand up! Get up!

Carry your bed and follow me.

Let’s leave this ungrateful land

This land…

That savors the decaying cadavers of its sons

A land satiated by the blood of its children.

Let’s leave these poor people

Defeated, fragmented

Knowing nothing but selfishness,

Servicing foreigners,

And worshipping the hollow love of prestige.

What is left for us

In these destroyed cities

Where no peace remains

And doors are unbolted only to conquerors,

To bats… to others?

To hunters preying,

over the hills of the East, North, and South,

for chances to lash our cities,

To empty them of their national commitment

And annex them to their own waste lands,

Transforming fecundity to infertility

And civility to wilderness.

O my country!

They all killed you

And got drunk over your pure blood

Your people… your very own

Prefer the souls of others

Over the freshness of your bright face.

They brag with others’ daggers

Slaying the throats of their kin;

Draw the aliens’ whips

Inflaming the backs of their brothers;

Welcome shame stepping on the pride of your cedars

Blackening the whiteness of your hands…

All of them, my country, crucified you

And cast lots over your garment.

They all left you alone

In the olive orchard

And delivered you to the mercenary soldiers

Your wailing fell on their deaf ears.

While you were giving the farewell discourse

And giving up your spirit,

They busied themselves analyzing the gender of the angels

No one wiped your bloody forehead

They all pierced your side with a spear

And left you in the battles of Badr and Uhud

To please their foreign masters

And fill their pockets with silver,

Price of their treason…

They all betrayed you with a kiss,

Gave you to the Pharisees

And stood with them in the court of Caesar

Shouting out: “crucify him… crucify him…

His blood be upon us and on our children.. Crucify him.”

They all called for the release of Barabas,

For the life of Yazeed;

They asked the throne of Chosroes for help,

The armies of the Tatar,

The soldiers of Hulaga

And accused your own army of betrayal

Of impotence, of conspiracy…

Because it asked for your love… you my country..

How will they escape the judgment of history,

The hour of truth?

Where will they hide their faces

On resurrection day?

My country, crucified

On the crossroads of history

Because your only guilt was your truthfulness

Because you said openly:

“Only God in my garment”…

“All of you are merchants

In the temple of nationalism”.

My Lebanon, you struck them with your voice,

With your whip you lashed their contaminated throats

You, the believer in the one God

And they, the worshippers of idols

And Satan.

They pierced you with the spear of betrayal

They all pierced you

Even Brutus, along with them

And they washed their hands with Pilate

With foreigners and conspirers

They walked in your funeral

Carried your casket

And cried crocodile tears

And then..

My country

What is left for us in this land,

You and I?

I, the ever-straying

And you the stranger in your own land and nation..

Your sea is not your sea

Nor the cedars your cedars

Nor the mountains are yours

Come and sail with me.

No care where,

Nostalgia at home

Is more haunting than nostalgia in exile.

They do not deserve you as a country

As long as they are tribes

Tearing each other

Attacking their own if they find no other to attack.

They will not wear the clock of the prophet

As they are happy in their complete ignorance

And they will not savor the manna

As long as they still savor

The bitter dates of ancient times.


Translated from the original Arabic by May Ahmar.


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.