I found it - Fadwa Tuqan

I found it on a beautiful, sunny day.

I found it after great loss:

Fresh verdant soil,

Wet and flourishing.

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