W. H. Auden || Refugee Blues

W. H. Auden ||

Refugee Blues

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

*

Source

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Fady Joudah || Two Poems

Fady Joudah || 

Two Poems

  Sleeping Trees

Between what should and what should not be
Everything is liable to explode. Many times
I was told who has no land has no sea. My father
Learned to fly in a dream. This is the story
Of a sycamore tree he used to climb
When he was young to watch the rain.
 
Sometimes it rained so hard it hurt. Like being
Beaten with sticks. Then the mud would run red.
 
My brother believed bad dreams could kill
A man in his sleep, he insisted
We wake my father from his muffled screams
On the night of the day he took us to see his village.
No longer his village he found his tree amputated.
Between one falling and the next
 
There’s a weightless state. There was a woman
Who loved me. Asked me how to say tree
In Arabic. I didn’t tell her. She was sad. I didn’t understand.
When she left. I saw a man in my sleep three times. A man I knew
Could turn anyone into one-half reptile.
I was immune. I thought I was. I was terrified of being
 
The only one left. When we woke my father
He was running away from soldiers. Now
He doesn’t remember that night. He laughs
About another sleep, he raised his arms to strike a king
And tried not to stop. He flew
But mother woke him and held him for an hour,
 
Or half an hour, or as long as it takes a migration inward.
Maybe if I had just said it.
Shejerah, she would’ve remembered me longer. Maybe
I don’t know much about dreams
But my mother taught me the law of omen. The dead
Know about the dying and sometimes
Catch them in sleep like the sycamore tree
My father used to climb
 
When he was young to watch the rain stream,
And he would gently swing.


SOURCE
***

The Tea and Sage Poem

At a desk made of glass,
In a glass walled-room
With red airport carpet,
 
An officer asked
My father for fingerprints,
And my father refused,
 
So another offered him tea
And he sipped it. The teacup
Template for fingerprints.
 
My father says, it was just
Hot water with a bag.
My father says, in his country,
 
Because the earth knows
The scent of history,
It gave the people sage.
 
I like my tea with sage
From my mother’s garden,
Next to the snapdragons
 
She calls fishmouths
Coming out for air. A remedy
For stomach pains she keeps
 
In the kitchen where
She always sings.
First, she is Hagar
 
Boiling water
Where tea is loosened.
Then she drops
 
In it a pinch of sage
And lets it sit a while.
She tells a story:
 
The groom arrives late
To his wedding
Wearing only one shoe.
 
The bride asks him
About the shoe. He tells her
He lost it while jumping
 
Over a house-wall.
Breaking away from soldiers.
She asks:
 
Tea with sage
Or tea with mint?
 
With sage, he says,
Sweet scent, bitter tongue.
She makes it, he drinks.


Source

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