damage, especially for the miserable. The association between loss and rain
is underscored to perpetuate the juxtaposition that underpins the poem,
between giggling and weeping, beauty and damage, wealth and hunger. This
fluctuation lends the poem more referents that apply to the social and
political, for wealth turns into poverty and misery, like the rain that brings
about damage and loss. Juxtaposition works vertically and horizontally
between the human and the natural as they shed into each other to develop
the paradoxical structure of the poem. The paradox that gathers force and
impetus through mingling sound and meaning takes the poem away from
classical structuring. The poetic voice claims no power other than its
early invocation as it accelerates memory and perpetuates subtle comparison,
invocation and prayer, as carefully measured in pace with the falling rain:
The evening yawns and the clouds continue to gush
And pour; pour their heavy tears down
Like a child weeping in his sleep
For his mother whom, when he woke a year ago,
He did not see.
And when he persisted in asking,
They told him,
“She’ll be back the day after tomorrow,”
She must come,
Though friends whisper that she’s there
At the side of the hill, sleeping the sleep of the dead,
Down in her own earth, drinking the rain
Like a disappointed fisherman gathering his nets,
And cursing the fates and the waters,
Singing his mournful songs when the moon wanes.
Rain...
Rain...
Do you know what grief the rain brings?
When the gutters resound with the sad music of the falling rain,
And how the lonely feel a sense of loss when it rains.^30The popularity of this poem is due in part to its realistic strain, its imme-
diate engagement with Iraqi life and politics. Its durability may be explained
also in these terms, as the richest country falls into evil hands every now and
then. Yet, this sustained popularity is also due to its power as a poem, its
lyrical flow, the density of images, the admixture of the pastoral and the real,
the elegiac, and the celebratory. Its biographical journeying back and forth
between childhood and adult life, and its music, endow it with markers of
both the folk song and the canticle. Its classical poetic subtext is equally
responsible for this durability. The poem works within a traditional register,
pre-Islamic and Islamic, while it creates its space of innovation and creativity.
CONCLUSION: DEVIATIONAL AND REVERSAL POETICS