Saleh Badrah

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In spite of death and all the elements
Of darkness in this evanescent world,
The beauty of your cultivated soul
Will live and flourish through eternity.
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Nan-in, the sage, one day received
A guest who'd come in search of wisdom.
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Come, my little daughter, come!
Come and sit here next to me!

Rest your head upon my heart
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It's fruitless in this bleakness to seek zest
Or cheerfulness to brighten up your gloom:
For what bird here will ever build its nest?
What fragrant rose in here will ever bloom?
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My soul stood up today and said:
Your heart is full of sorrow.

I know, I said,
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Each wrinkle in his ancient face
Bespeaks a monumental deed.
Serenely there with pride he sits,
No longer longing to succeed:
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Like a pearl inside a shell,
Deeply sheltered in the deep,
Deeply deep within my heart,
You, O soother of my grief,
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For things of beauty
constantly am I searching,
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Your spry Springtime song
springs from the eternal spring
of timeless beauty.
_____________________
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(To Mahmoud Darwish)

Who said your heart no longer beats?
It beats and will forever beat
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Fast-running Time is running fast,
Transforming present into past.

Discard your schemes; no longer gleams
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Watch out O anti-Arabs everywhere:
All Arab kids have now no time to spare!

They're all now busy training to be stars,
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Who knows not the thief of time?
He's that fiend who slyly steals
And thrives upon suspended dreams,
Upon the things we could have done
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Should you, my soul, who sailed to distant shores
And traced the founts of sweet serenity,
Be vexed and irked by those insidious frauds
Whose souls are fraught with spite and enmity?
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Like mythopoeic nymphs,
Four beauties, when you sing,
Sweet warbler of the heart,
Dance jointly in my soul:
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(In imitation of Catullus: poem 87)

No honest woman, Lesbia, can
In truth declare that any man
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(In imitation of Goethe)

By the springtime blossoms of the mountains,
I'm no longer captivated.
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(A Haiku)

The Lilliputians
are being themselves again,
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An Elegy On The Death Of Soad Hosni
by Ghazi Al-Gosaibi
Translated by Saleh Badrah
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