Poems

You Crossed the Border

You crossed the border: your homeland had no language,
or maybe it had nothing to say.
You crossed the border: imagine it's your homeland.
What did your homeland have that the whole world lacked?
 
First, you were greeted by tears.
This kind friend with an unkind face,
Sorrow, embraced you out of dirt and dust,
a friend who clasped you closer than others.
The sick old man who welcomed you so tenderly
was exhausted by travelling from village to village.
You longed to buy happiness
but only smugglers offered it for sale.
 
You crossed the border: imagine it's your homeland.
What did you homeland have that the whole world lacked?
Oh poet! You have come to the kingdom of misery,
to a land with no sky,
a land where poets trade in humanity,
where the mouths of prophets are stopped,
where dogs are ministers and donkeys are imams.
No calls to prayer issue from its mosques free of bribes.
What on earth did you expect from your homeland?
That its banquet tables weren't piled high with bones?
 
Poet! Your homeland is a vanished past.
Now it offers nothing but insults, greed, boredom and grief.
Instead of poetry, would that you had gold and power -
that sacred talent does no good here.