Salman Masalha | DIRGE

 

Salman Masalha

DIRGE

Smoke pillars clothe the sky,
hills will hide behind the haze,
fear fills his mind, his pulse is high
and his heart is all ablaze.

Treading silent on the verge,
he envisions in his brain
as verses in his spirit surge:
a final dirge for distant days,

fleeting, long departed, cold,
of many nights and griefs unnamed.     
He counts hundreds, thousandfold,
numerous souls erased.

Images of infants and elders dead,
smashed, fragmented, broken clay,  
human leaves by ill winds sped,
Pride's captives blown away.

With all light in their eyes snuffed out,
little children consumed in flames,
extinguished in the ruined town
are ashes of dreams, the life of an age.

Pillars of smoke in hill and vale
rise as fires devour the remains.
Insatiable gluttony prevails,
yet begs for alms to keep its gains.

From there to here and back again,
from sea’s edge to riverbank,
Death’s display window is dressed
in gushing blood and pain.

Spring has passed and summer came.
This land weeps like the willow’s plaint.
The grandees seeing Death in place
know neither modesty nor grace.

translated by Vivian Eden

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