Salman Masalha ||

Death Retouched

All around pain is aflame
From the desert to the sea.
Here my blood is now fair game,
This land, an abyss for me.

I shall not raise my voice above 
In broken-hearted supplications.
In the place to which I’ve come
My tongue utters devastation.

What does today here hold for me,
As my feet plod through the dust?
In my heart – a fading dream
That a tomorrow might yet come.

If only warmth could now be bidden,
But ice has paralyzed my breath.
A widow mourns with orphaned children:
The retouched picture is of death.

Will war, as captive of the past,
Ever slumber? I can’t tell.
I am surfeited at last,
Between the gallows and the hell,

With writing peace in song and verse
Plucking strings of moral lyres.
This dance is just a glorified curse
By capering naked liars.
*

English version by Vivian Eden
*
Haaretz, May 20, 2021

 

The Hebrew poem Published in Haaretz 16/5/2021