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.
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.
