‎Tomorrow, you miserable life ‎By Haider Al-Ghazali – Palestinian Poet – Gaza

‎Tomorrow, you miserable life
‎By Haider Al-Ghazali – Palestinian Poet – Gaza ‎

Translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Ebeid.
‎Tomorrow, miserable life‎‎, ‎‎we will cross into the green and the scent of roses, with two hearts embracing like eternity. We laugh at the fullness of our sorrows that have broken things in us that will never return. Oppressed, sad, and overflowing with love, I walk to you. In my eyes are archers hunting for joy and jubilation, they have not tried their guns, they have not tried running in the wilderness.‎
‎Tomorrow, life, we will come to you, naked, barefoot. We do not deny our shadows, nor our hearts that have lived through grief enough to know life.‎
‎Tomorrow, you miserable woman, we will go down to your fields hungry and not to eat. We will cross your water breathless and not overflowing, for in our hearts are singing and dancing in love, who condemn our hearts and be satisfied, and they express our names, so that they can remove the gloom and fatigue from them.‎
‎Tomorrow, miserable life, we will come to you after we have buried our children, wiped away the dust and blood from their bodies, and written stories on them that they love. About the love that is red in color, about the wounds they received because they succeeded in school, about their dry tears that dug into their skin, because it is the world’s way of joking, and about the torn clothes that those who become their dreams have.‎
‎We, life, fear the monstrosity and the darkness. We put our children in narrow and dark rooms, apply heavy marble to their chests, and seal them tight.‎
‎Don’t you answer me? Why is this happening with hearts that were aching with hope?‎
‎We will come to you, you miserable one, and plant in you a life that no one knows, that no one has ever experienced. People live there to color the sky, pick the clouds, and rejoice in songs, gardens, ordinary sorrows, and glass boredom broken by women’s perfumes, and their lips are gentle.‎
‎For you, miserable one, our hearts are tired in wars, and our bodies are stripped of their grace. Will you come as the birds, the clouds, and the sorrows come? Don’t you migrate from your country to us? Aren’t you light enough on the heart to carry you to the wind? Aren’t you agile enough to run to us like a gazelle dodging arrows and stones?‎
‎Rocks come to them at times when water and trees come out, and the mountains rest from their stones, throwing them into rivers and valleys. And my heart, you naughty, with its windows shining, did not come to it in the mornings, nor did the sun’s rays come to it.‎
‎Will you come like a song and more? On our sleeves, you teach the plant how to climb, and in our palms, your watery waist sinks?‎
‎We will come to you, you naughty one, while we sweep the streets of gunpowder and bullets, and we gather the flesh from the rubble and trees, and we cry a lot, and our tears come out in the form of joy and fall, in the form of love, and fall, melting and disappearing.‎
‎Perhaps you came to us once, by chance, and passed over the wing of a bird or a cloud, looking at us as we dragged our heavy days into tomorrow. Didn’t it occur to you to come down to us and ask about our sorrows? Didn’t it occur to you to climb on our shoulders to see the horizon clearly? Or do you know that we have no bread, no food, no houses, no cafes, no streets, no joy, no sweets to feed you if you come? Don’t you know that we will bake our hearts for you, build you colorful walls, and live in our stubbornness to live?‎
‎We see you at the airports hugging those who come and go, you take care of them and you instill wonder in them, we see you well behind these high walls, behind tanks, soldiers and barricades, walking and planting the ground with friendship, crystals, cypress trees and love, wiping the seats, washing the face of cities, cleaning their teeth, putting on kohl and lipstick, taking their children to schools and parks, and hugs, I don’t ask you to stay with us, but I owe you answers I want, for what I have always loved You’re far away, why did you stuff my chest with waiting as long as you don’t come?‎
‎Oh, miserable life, I am waiting for you under a plane that knows nothing but murder and blood. I am waiting for you, and I do not have much time.‎
‎