A Soothsayer by Nada Yousef (Syria)

A Soothsayer
Arabic text by
Nada Yousef (Syria)

Translated into English by
Dr. Yousef Hanna (Palestine)
    
An oracle...
              
She reads the nation’s fate in shifting sand
and says:
“Once a wound,
you shall be caught
in the cruel folds of a merciless wind.
You are the children of a nation
condemned to bear
the baskets of anguish,
to read the scrolls of exile,
and wear the colours
of war, of hatred, of betrayal’s blame.
You shall peel the eggshells of your grief,
press forth the bitter prayer of salt,
and gather up the scattered fragments
of your souls.
You shall weep
within the tents of hope.
Each morning, you shall wash your dead,
then hang them out to dry
upon a line of verse
that dreams of life."
And with unwavering faith,
we left the letter and its thoughts
to steal the stolen moments
of injustice
from the well of the eye,
and gather what had clung
by eavesdropping.
We left it to catch
the bleeding rain
from the wounded cloud
that darkens the heart;
to lend its ear

to the lost wind’s whistle
wandering through alleys
of hunger and of pain.

And, once with hope,
we wore it from the tales of December,
and certitude in the joy of beginnings,
those first words
inscribed by the fingertips
of some inscrutable, fateful Will.

We gathered up our dreams
and roamed with our thoughts
through streets abloom with flowers.

We turned our eyes away from
the wreckage of the world;
we chose to forget the forest,
thick with daggers.

We bartered hatred for love
and braided love into our hair,

lest the injustice of the sickle
shear our tresses to the ground.

We committed life
and laughed at Death’s solemn face.

We followed the light,
raised high its voice,
and spread the ink-black sails
of its masts,
that it might write—

there is a way to be delivered,
there is a shore beyond
this deluge...