Naim Araidi was born in 1950, in the Druze
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
1
People of the
crude as the terebinth gentle as the oak
burning like the fires of
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
Leave me alone
so I won’t be lost!
Let me look backwards
and my soul die with
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
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
on a tight gallows rope of mine
or perhaps of theirs.
3.
Breaches are mended in spite of the
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
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
And in spite of everything
it is quiet in the village
on the crossroads between the upper
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 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
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.
I listened to
your songs each stormy day
and understood that great
sadness
though I was never with you
in
slowly
from the veins of those chords
that hungered and ached
at once
and when you were alone
on the road that goes from
and couldn’t stop by your lofty
house
on the Druze mountain
or you’d be accused of
treason.
Translated by
Karen Alkalay-Gut
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.
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?
I sat down to rest
They said:
Poetry is behind
Science is ahead
And between the two
Your divided heart
Is the pull of the butterfly
To the flower
It is the eternal fall
Into life’s abyss
Woman is spirit
Man is flesh
That is eternity
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