Farewell Words , Colette Khoury

Translated by Mohammad Abdul-Karem Yousef

***
Like the gifts of the feast,
Like lights of Christmas trees,
Like chants ,
I thought you would come to me
On New Year s Eve.

Like the prayers,
Like generosity,
Like the joy of the poor,
Like esperance ,
I anticipated that you would come to me,
Days of the past,
Engraved,
On the wall of lifetime...

I imagined the stars,
Pouring down legends,
Prospects ripple hymns
And the world gets drunk with poetry,
I thought you would come...
And I saw the springs that dried up
In my country,
overflowing with love,
A page from our history is flipped,
On hurt, bitterness and disappointment.
I felt faith come
Back to me,
It turns sadness, within my soul, into prayer,
It wipe off Fatigue lines
From my face,
On New Year s Eve .

***

O! How far away... away You are !
Though you are the closest to me
O! How absent you are!
Though you are always there,
In the pulse of my days,
In the shadows of my mind,
And in the burning of my eyes.

I thought you would come to me
On New Year s Eve.
I thought you would defy the world
And come back...
Like a whirlwind of love
That is blown from eternity,

like eagerness,
That brings back lost hope,

and be a chest
That it once was a homeland…

Alas! The Big country of exile,
our homeland,
Distorts your known faith
And drove you, like it, love hindrances,
Infatuated with borders…
Drove you ,like him,
Leave your details to strangers,
In the face of lovers, you close your chest,
And adopt the slogan of ingratitude...
made you like him,
Dive in the mud,
In search of brilliance ,
O! You are me...Myself!
My illusion spring dried up
On New Year s Eve.

My eyes overflowed with tears,
And I laughed at my estrangement,
And my loneliness reveled among the crowds,
My hands rose to the sky appealing
to allow the homelands -
My country which is your chest,
And the big country
That made us, we both, homeless.

I wish you were here,
My friend,
On New Year s Eve.
I did not think of you,
To celebrate together for the Eid,
It doesn t occur to my mind
That we share the New Year together.

It doesn t occur to my mind
That we look forward to tomorrow Together,
To embrace the mirage of happiness
That haunts us .
I wish you were here,
My friend,
On New Year s Eve ...
To bid farewell to a departing year that brought us together...
Let s say... O! my friend goodbye...to "each other."

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