Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition

Ash has shrouded the horizon.

So for whom do the Sirens sing?

The sea is dead,

and on its face, grass floats with our golden days,

the memory of which returns when the singer sings.

Our golden days are drowning and singing is turning

to weeping.

The larks have fled, my sad moon, and

the treasure is buried in the stream,

at the end of the garden, under the lemon tree.

It was hidden there by Sinbad.

It is hollow.

Ash, snow, darkness, and dead leaves bury it.

Fog has veiled the earth.

Is this how we die? In a wasteland,

watching the candle of childhood shrivel in the sand?

Is this how the sun sets?

With no fire in the hearth of the poor?^32

In the second part of the first letter, the poet adopts a mask of a forlorn
Sinbad, isolated and desolate, whose recollections of family and friends are
futile practices to sustain sanity.

Cities sleep without dawn.

I beckoned your name in the streets, and darkness replied.

I begged the wind, wailing in the heart of the void;

I saw your face in mirrors and eyes,

in window panes of that elusive dawn

and on postcards.

In cities without dawn,

even the birds deserted the churches.

(Ibid.)

Carrying the image of the son does not change things in exile, nor does it
bring happiness to the son. The poet justifies then the overwhelming sorrow
that envelopes his poetry:

So for whom do you sing, my heart? The street shops have sealed

their doors.

For whom do you pray my broken heart?

The night has passed

and carriages

laced with frost

returned without horses.

POETIC DIALOGIZATION