Apologies Poem by Khaled Juma

To The Sky
To the first rain I embraced, not inferring my yearning to cry. To my burning before the great witness on the dawn. To a disappointment, hung by friends on their trees. To a chest broken open, flooding with emotion like an elongated season. I apologize for my visible being unified in the faraway color.
Dear Lord: Enlighten your sky so my apology could enter before creatures awake.

To Her Eyes
At the morning's gate, I realized your eyes have a reach unrealized by the fearful. I poured my coffee and its bitterness into your short day. I prepared, for you, the fluted, without training my soul to play. I was an entanglement with streets and air, and You, were my defeat before you. What defends your eyes from enemies' horses, is for you. What liberates your heart from impossible wishes, is for you. My apology for my agony, is for you. And for you, is the beginnings of bees on trees of serenity and homelands of peace.

To Me
Like a thought, sealed with blazes and ennui, I come to my death, dyed with horses. I embrace angels of silver, with voices or gold tinkering in the vast royal foyer. I discover that I am no longer discoverable; that I was never a flute or a prophet. I liberate my hands from my hands, my head from its thought, my chest from its air, and I see my departure leaning on the last line of language, and in emptiness. I do not love, I do not hate, I do not fall, I do not rise, and I look for who accepts my apology.

Translated from Arabic by Nida Awine