I'Ve Come To Say Goodbye Poem by Nouri al Jarrah

Not a night passes by without this glare rising, the abducted brilliance of my life;
without pavements forgetting me
and a train taking me again to the cemetery.

It never rises
never glimmers on a glass
without...

Once, I came to say good-bye.
I did... what others do and, prayed to be like one of them.
Then some angels noticed me, and I stood transfixed
as they recognized me, and began to discuss my identity and relatives.

I didn't want to be discovered that easily.
They would leave me milk in gleaming pitchers,
then tiptoe out to eavesdrop.

Now I recline in crystalline silence.

What shall I do, in a room in the countryside?
I'd be glad if a messenger arrived on a bicycle,
if a sister came to put in a good word for me -
better than I deserve, I the unsuccessful brother -
in spite of all that has transpired and all that may come to pass.
Without thinking, I find myself writing to you beneath the lights
where nothing frightens me more than these glasses
where this brilliance
touches my shoulder,
transparent;
is refracted,
touches it again.

Such is the misfortune of one who stands still.
But for me, all is simplified.

In my sleep I watch for you.
I prolong the night, that its mercy
may embrace us both,
hoping to see you quell the froth
and allow me to drink down the darkness.

We will share, the night and I, the agony of encounter
which is what we long for and dread;
our final passage in these cold lands.
Such is the disposition of strength:
the ability to descend ladders into another life.
Or, to put it differently,
an excursion into fear.

Translated by Seema Atalla