The Long Season Of Sadness Poem by Istabraq Al Ahmadi

There is a still lake in my heart
That faints and sinks in its sad retreat
Whenever the sun or the moon
With their bright hands its wan surface touch.
It sinks like a turtle's head inside a circle of fire.
The look on its face is as sad as death
On the face of a bridegroom whose bride
Was denied the first hot kiss.
Sometimes I feel as if I am a bare twig
That throws its naked shade
Over that lake in my heart.
Sometimes I feel there is a smile
Over the complexion of the lake
But, the waves and fog blur my sight,
Thus, all the pieces of that smile sink
Deep in the black hole in my heart.
Sometimes I feel that the lake is so calm
That I feel my heart's emptiness.
Thus, I hurl my tears as stones
To disturb the deadly stillness
And to spare my heart another day.
Sometimes I hear the wind singing,
Over my aching heart and weary mind,
The song of the birds of the south
That echo the wailing of the marches
For lovers and their lips no longer trust
The reed to give the blown wind
The likeness of the sad notes of the flute.
Sometimes I feel my heart is a marsh
On whose banks the boat of loning
Still tied to the clay and the white shawl
That a mother wraps her dead son with.
Sometimes I feel that tears are my smell,
And that darkness is my colour and attire.
Thus, my heart always tastes sadness
As the swift arrows taste the deep wounds.