أدموع النساء والأطفال — Ibrahim Tuqan

Are these the tears of women and children

that wound the heart—or the tears of men?

My country was safe and tranquil

until Fate hurled an earthquake upon it.

Shock after shock left it

a time-effaced ruin among ruins.

The earth swayed, then reared and cast off

the burdens upon its back.

Houses toppled on the right,

and on the left, having cast out their people,

amid dust raised by the wreckage of the world,

whose landmarks and sun were fading away.

And behold: the houses were either graves,

their people beneath them, or else empty.

I watch the breeze: if it passed over any remnant

still standing, it would level it, so ruinous is it.

Do not stop to question bereaved Nablus:

there is no one there to answer a question.

Have you seen the birds fleeing in terror,

light and heavy alike, from their open range?

Thus were its people driven from the homes

they had built, toward the mountain caves.

Are these mere traces, though once soaring buildings,

each a lofty palace defying time?

So we took the sky for our covering, after curtains,

trailing sheer drapes, and bridal canopies.

And wedding nights—alas, my heart!—

the vicissitudes of time have annulled them.

Time made us laugh, dear son of my affection, and made us weep

on a day when sorrow had never crossed the mind.

Many a valley, green as a river,

once strutted in the robes of beauty.

Languid breaths of breeze passed through it,

while its great trees swayed proudly.

Birds of many kinds thronged it,

resplendent in their colors and forms,

singing on thrones amid the groves,

joining mornings to evenings.

Melodies they loosed, richly cadenced,

repeating their song in flowing succession.

O birds of the valley, my heart’s burning thirst

was soothed by the coolness of those shades.

O birds of the valley, my country’s calamities

have mingled my song with wailing.

Your valley was once a resort for joy,

but through ruin it has met the worst of fates.

Mount Ebal once quivered with the echo of fellowship—

what, then, have you heard upon Ebal?

Gerizim was a pleasure-ground, with lovely maidens

amid its shade and limpid water.

Are these the tears of its springs, stirred forth by

the sighs of widows and bereaved mothers?

O hand of death, never had I known thousands

from you so raging, reaching out to slaughter.

War raged for five years, yet did not strike us

as did mere seconds that passed without combat.

The faces of death are many; now all

were revealed amid these horrors.

Among them, an only son to his mother and father—

they gathered his dismembered body.

And one bent over his children, his face

mingling tears with the cascading earth.

And a girl clung to her father’s waist

in panic, while he pleaded in supplication.

And a grievously ill man saw his son yield his spi-

rit nearby, yet beyond the reach of rescue.

And a sick man with his visitors—all felled by dea-

th—though they had been praying for recovery.

The house collapsed upon the sick man and all who visi-

ted him, upon the nurses and the children.

In a single instant we saw and heard

how Death toys with allotted lifespans.

Here are hungry women without shel-

ter, covering their bodies with rags.

Here a family departs, carrying griefs

instead of furnishings upon their pack-saddles.

Here is one afflicted by the loss of his kin;

here one destitute, with many dependents.

Sorrow filled every heart and swept away

a wind of despair, the bloom of hopes.

Intruders in the land! Palestine indeed

is a land whose treasures are chastisements.

Her gold is death’s pallor—take that warning

from her sons, and proclaim your departure.

Lord, show mercy: a warning has come to us

of pestilence after this affliction.

And locusts—and every coming evil is near;

or, after drought, what further drought can there be?

Lord, calamities come upon us one after another;

the anguish of exile and occupation is enough for us.