Balqees

Balqees. . . oh princess, You burn, caught between tribal wars, What will I write about the departure of my queen? Indeed, words are my scandal. . . . Here we look through piles of victims For a star that fell, for a body strewn like fragments of a mirror. Here we ask, oh my love: Was this your grave Or the grave of Arab nationalism? I won't read history after today, My fingers are burned, my clothes bedecked with blood, Here we are entering the stone age. . . . Each day we regress a thousand years. What does poetry say in this era, Balqees? What does poetry say in the cowardly era. . . ? The Arab world is crushed, repressed, its tongue cut. . . . We are crime personified. . . . Balqees . . . I beg your forgiveness. Perhaps your life was the ransom of my own, Indeed I know well That the purpose of those who were entangled in murder was to kill my words! Rest in God's care, oh beautiful one, Poetry, after you, is impossible. . . .