Naim Araidi  

 

 

Naim Araidi was born in 1950, in the Druze village of Marrar in the Galilee.  He went to Hebrew school in Haifa, and continued to a PhD in Hebrew Literature. He teaches in Haifa and has published numerous  books of poetry and prose both Arabic and Hebrew.  He has been awarded the Prime Minister's Award; The Creativity Prize for Arabic Literature; and an honorary PhD from the World Academy for Arts and Culture. A book of poetry entitled Back to the Village is available in English

 

Selected poems

 

PEOPLE OF THE GALILEE............................................... 2

QUIET IN THE VILLAGE.................................................... 4

IF ONLY........................................................................................ 5

ON THE MASSACRE OF CHILDREN........................... 6

TO FARID AL ATRASH......................................................... 7

KORSAKOV................................................................................ 8

WHAT SHALL WE SAY TO WHOM............................... 9

TABLET........................................................................................ 10

KISS................................................................................................ 11

TABLET........................................................................................ 12

And Many Nations.................................................................... 13


PEOPLE OF THE
GALILEE

 

1

People of the Galilee are strong as the sun

crude as the terebinth gentle as the oak

burning like the fires of Sodom

moist as the salt of the sea

so far from their bodies.

And from the distance of closeness

and from the distance of distance

I grasp the rope at both ends

one tied

to my neck,

one to their neck,

cry out to them,

People of the Galilee!

Leave me alone

so I won’t be lost!

Let me look backwards

and my soul die with Gomorrah.

 

2

A thin thread binds me to you

pull on it and I go slack

and let it go slack and I pull!

You feel the same way.

All the people of the Galilee

were born from my womb

to be against me

and I from their womb to be against them.

I am of another mind.

They are but men

and something between me and them

breaks the laws of their fathers and sons.

In spite of me in spite of

their anger

I and the people of the Galilee walk

on a tight gallows rope of mine

or perhaps of theirs.

 

3.

Breaches are mended in spite of the Galilee snows.

Olive trees bear fruit in winter

and the great stones grind everything together—

the oil to soothe our wounds

and the olive-dregs breathe attar in our nostrils

stopped up with the grippe of the Galilee.

I will go on ripping up my pages

and they will cut the rope between me and them

and blood shall flow.

I will be the victim to atone

for my sin

to my son.

 

Translated by Jay Shir

 


QUIET IN THE VILLAGE

 

And in spite of everything

it is quiet in the village

on the crossroads between the upper Galilee

and the lower.

I and my five sons wonder

one about all and all

about one.

My Carmelite wife

counts six and is not certain

whom she forgot.

And in spite of everything

me and my wife

and my five sons

and silence.      And slumber

does not fall

on me.

 

Translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut

 


 IF ONLY

 

If only we walked

in our own paths

and spoke our own tongue

and rode a camel

and hungered and thirsted

and made love

and that’s all

 

translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut

 


ON THE MASSACRE OF CHILDREN

 

A.

 

Small children locked eyes to eyes

and spoke to one another, and another to one

in the silent, noisy language of death.

I couldn’t understand a thing—

children of tender years

and more tender deaths.

So said the poet:

neither Hebrew nor Arabic,

nor any other language—

slaughtered children have no tongues

as the heavens will bear witness.

And it seemed that they spoke

and I could not understand,

children of tender years

and more tender deaths.

So said the poet:

God in Heaven

who understands doubly

all things You made in Your wisdom—

Your wisdom is beyond me.

I do not accuse you.

 

B.

 

And for a moment the things

that must not be forgotten

are forgotten:

man has reason,

animal has a brain,

but I am not sure

for whom it would be easier

when the poet exposes

the cruel secret of death.

Death here, death there—

a boy here, a girl there—

torn in their lives and in their deaths.

This is the crying that has not begun;

this is the crying that has no end.

 

 


TO FARID AL ATRASH

 

I listened to your songs each stormy day

and understood that great sadness

though I was never with you

in Cairo.

And in my poems I caught your grief that emitted

slowly

from the veins of those chords that hungered and ached

at once

and when you were alone

on the road that goes from Egypt to Lebanon

and couldn’t stop by your lofty house

on the Druze mountain

or you’d be accused of treason.

 

 

 

Translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut

 


KORSAKOV

 

In a stone house and Galilean yard,

figs and pomegranates guard my window

from the barking of dogs

and vines are proud to give clusters of grapes,

to explode with pleasant-scent leaves,

and nothing has gone with the wind.

 

In a night among the summer nights

of the desert village,

now has ended this Sheherezade

of Korsakov.

Strange

to hear the true “Arabian Nights”

 

in Russian.

 

 

 

 


WHAT SHALL WE SAY TO WHOM

            To Anton Shammas

 

What shall we say to whom

about people, about peoples,

about ourselves?

Where shall we be

where now,

and where were we?

What shall we say to whom

you with what,

and I with whom?

 

Look closely at the language of mirrors:

look far off—

behold

how the ancestor’s knife

fixes its sharp eyes

upon our eyes.

Look how they appear from afar—

old people, women, and children

in great anger

and in great delight

distancing the gods

from above us.

 

What shall our Father in heaven say

and our father in the earth

if there is no miracle

and if fire does not burn?

Will we suffice to see

with our own eyes

the number of stars in whose multitudes

will be our descendants?

 

Oh, how hard waiting in the night

and  how hard in the day!

Which is the language of loneliness

of artists, images of man? 

Which is the poetry,

the art,

which is the best silence that,

like the cry of Abel from the blood,

will be able to explain in truth

what I shall say to whom

in this perfect moment?

 

 


TABLET

 

I sat down to rest

They said:

Poetry is behind

Science is ahead

And between the two

Your divided heart

 

 


KISS

Is the pull of the butterfly

To the flower

It is the eternal fall

Into life’s abyss


 

TABLET

 

Woman is spirit

Man is flesh

That is eternity

 


And Many Nations

 

 

1.

And many nations shall come there and speak

and I shall be among them,

a man who bears to men

a poem.

 

And they shall beat their swords

into plough shares

sometimes bearing spears

sometimes hymns

 

and I shall be among them,

a man who bears to men

a poem.

 

2.

Enemies are sometimes friends

and the vigor of the horses

raises the value of the rider –

soldiers dead in battle

are fallen forever

 

and the entire the life of peace

is due to those awful deaths –

 

but poets in their life and death

remain but poets

 

and I shall be among them

a man who carries to men

a poem.

 

3.

Violins are never warm

if they are never in human hands

and in summer, when the stones are warm

the spirit is within them, perhaps like blood.

 

Man sometimes errs, curses, rages, quarrels

but forgets at the passing of the storm

and will say it has never been

and will play other melodies

 

and I shall be among them

a man who carries to men

a poem.

 

 

 

Translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut