GeorgeNicolasEl-Hage.com
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  • 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) >
      • 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 >
      • 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
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The Book of Death, #28

Today, the seventh day of the month of Death, I decided to end our relationship. I decided to pack my suitcase and leave. Everything in our spring-like room I left for you: the velvet drapes, old books, notebooks of memories and red roses. All the silk pillows, and the ivory chairs, and the chandelier of carnations, the big bed in the other corner of the room remain for you. I took with me one bleeding suitcase which is my heart. It was so filled with surprise and sorrow that I did not have room for one little pencil. I left empty-handed except for an armful of ashes. I held dejection to my breast, the harvest of a full year of love. I embraced it with anguish and washed its forehead with dew from my eyes.

You are the city of slaughtered delight and sadness clothed in a cloak embellished with joy. I entered your wide gate through an opening in its breast, and I killed the crouching dragon beside the lake of the virgins. Cadmus and I killed him and I planted its teeth in the cave of despair by the edge of the forest of pelicans. I slaughtered the poisonous viper by the entrance to the Hall of Hearts with my fingernails and skinned it and made speckled shoes for you. I traveled with Sinbad to the valley of Diamonds and hunted the Rukh. I visited Hell with Odysseus and dove to the depths of the sea with Gilgamesh to search for the blue branch to offer to your immortal eyes, O Queen of the City, and City of Queens.

Today, the Ocean calls to me again. Blue sails wave to me in the distance from the seas’ horizon. In my eyes, the flocks of albatross grow new wings beckoning the sleeping dreams in them to a new adventure. Yesterday, when I harbored my ship by your black eyelashes, and my caravan rested in the garden of your big eyes, I set fire to my fleet with Tareq Bin Ziad. I sacrificed my she-camel with Umru al-Qais for a group of virgins dancing on the faraway shores of your oasis. I said to Musa Bin Nusair: “Come, in the name of God, let us settle this new land.”

I did not intend to leave you or to go to another land after I had found a family and home with you in the City of Peace. Neither did I anticipate that Kafur, the castrated one of Egypt, would return from the dead and wave the scepter of Mutanabbi in my face and drive me away. When they took you from me, virgin that I loved with all my heart, I declared war against them. On the right side of Hannibal the Great, I led the huge army against Rome- The Whore of History – I crossed the Alps’ frozen desert, I overcame the difficulties of Nature, I passed through the distances of hardship, yet I was powerless to overcome the barriers of hatred and ignorance and loathing in the hearts of your people, My lady.

I always knew my Kingdom was not of their world and that they would not be fit to be slaves in it. I knew that we would never meet. Never once have love and hatred met. Even though the desert enfolds the green oasis in its wrinkles, it knows they are not of one clay. In the world of love, adventure and fidelity, it matters not if the Hero is wealthy. The problem is not for his sweetheart to be the heiress of Palmyra’s throne. All that matters is that they are lovers. The world is shared by two – the lover and the poet. They love it from a distance; for joy and happiness. Never once did they consider owning it or selling it. Never once did the butterfly or the nightingale possess the flower garden or the lemon tree, for they are theirs from the beginning.

The birds of September carried to us the branch of peace while the world around us was drowning in its selfishness and materialism. We were not numbered among those who descended Mount Ararat. We have no need for sailing vessels when our hearts are doves carrying the glad-tidings of deliverance. From our love the ocean learned to love the shores which dreamt of happiness, and the moon learned to speak words of love to the silvery summer star.

Today I lost your face in the mists of death and your voice, which is the Cross of my Salvation. The whale threw me up from his belly with Jonah, and the waves carried me to a faraway, rocky, barren island, surrounded by an ocean of ashes. I stood before an angered Nature. I did not find a fig leaf to cover my bared soul. Your voice calls to me from there and my emotions quiver.

No, I did not eat the forbidden fruit nor did knowledge seduce me. Your love is my wine and my ink and the light of your eyes the essence of all books. But with Job it is written that I am destined to endure until God comes down clothed in a whirlwind and grants me an answer. Until that time, I will remain sure of my innocence and of the purity of your beautiful face. I will stay by its gate, knocking with my voice and screaming in the faces of those who sell love for money. I spit and throw stones in their mouths.

[Translated from the original Arabic by D. Maloof and George El-Hage.]



 

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