I found it on a beautiful, sunny day.
I found it after great loss:
Fresh verdant soil,
I found it as the sun passed over palm trees
Scattering over the grassy gardens
Its golden bouquets.
It was an April generous and fertile
In seeds, warmth, and the spring sun.
I found it after great loss:
An evergreen-fresh bough
In which birds seek refuge,
So it lodges them in its protective shade.
If a violent wind crosses it someday,
Thunderous and trembling,
It bends slightly,
Twists before the wind lightly.
As the thunderstorm dies down
The limb levels out,
Its water-heavy leaves quenched of thirst;
Its pliant body did not shatter
Under the wind's hand:
The branch remains as it was.
As if its trials did not break it
It laughs, with the beauty in all that it
Sees, in the radiance of a star,
In the lightness of a breeze,
In the sun, the dew, and the clouds.
I found it on a beautiful, sunny day,
After loss, after a long search:
A lake, clear and tranquil.
If at times its pure heart
Was lapped at by the wolves of mankind,
Or the winds of fate played in the lake
And muddied it briefly,
It cleared with the clarity of a crystal
And became the moon's face:
A pool of blueness and light
Where the guiding stars bathe.
I found it! Oh you tempest, blow
And mask the sun's face with clouds
As you like, and you days, turn my fate
From sunny and cheerful
To sullen and gloomy;
Even then my lights do not fade
And all the darkness that has been
Extending blackly through my life,
Enfolding it night after night,
Is gone, buried in the grave of the past,
Since the day my soul found itself.
Fadwa Tuqan (1971 - 2003) Palestine
Translated by Charlie Huntington
Source: 'Despite the great distance, existence unites the two: Translating the poetry of Fadwa Tuqan,' Franklin Huntington, Senior Honors Linguistics Thesis, Swarthmore College, Leeds, UK
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