RAIN SONG by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
Majed Dodeen
Translator - Hebrew Teacher- English Instructor- Writer - Poet - Editor - Arabic Tutor for Non-natives
Rain Song (?????? ????? “Unshūdat alma?ar”) is a famous 1960 poetry collection and Arabic poem by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
One of the "great poems in modern Arabic poetry", it has been compared to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
Your eyes are two palm tree forests in early light?
Or two balconies from which the moonlight recedes ?????? - ??????
When they smile? your eyes? the vines put forth their leaves?
And lights dance . . . like moons in a river
Rippled ????? – ???? by the blade ???? ??????? of an oar at break of day;
As if, stars were throbbing ???? - ???? in the depths of them . . .
And they drown in a mist of sorrow translucent)) ??? ????
Like the sea stroked by the hand of nightfall;
The warmth of winter is in it? the shudder of autumn?
And death and birth? darkness and light;
A sobbing???? –???? ?????? ????? flares ?????? – ??? ???? ????? up to tremble in my soul
And a savage elation?????? embracing the sky?
Frenzy???? ???? of a child frightened by the moon.
It is as if archways ??????? of mist ???? ????drank the clouds
Moreover, drop by drop dissolved ???? in the rain . . .
As if children snickered ???? ??? ??????in the vineyard bowers ?????? ?? ????? ?
The song of the rain
Drop? drop? the rain
Drip
Drop the rain
Evening yawned? from low clouds
Heavy tears are streaming still.
It is as if a child before sleep were rambling on ???? ??? ????
About his mother (a year ago he went to wake her? did not find her?
Then was told? for he kept on asking?
That she must come back again?
Yet his playmates ????? ????? whisper that she is there
In the hillside? sleeping her death for ever?
Eating the earth around her? drinking the rain;
As if a forlorn???? –????? ?? fisherman gathering nets
Cursed the waters and fate
And scattered a song at moonset?
Drip? drop? the rain
Drip? drop? the rain
Do you know what sorrow the rain can inspire?
Do you know how gutters ?????? - weep when it pours down?
Do you know how lost a solitary person feels in the rain?
Endless? like spilt blood? like hungry people? like love?
Like children? like the dead? endless the rain.
Your two eyes take me wandering with the rain?
Lightning is from across the Gulf sweep the shores of Iraq
With stars and shells?
As if a dawn were about to break from them? But night pulls over them a coverlet???? ?????? of blood. I cry out to the Gulf: "O Gulf?
Giver of pearls? shells and death!"
And the echo replies?
As if lamenting: ???? –???? – ????
"O Gulf?
Giver of shells and death.
I can almost hear Iraq husbanding???? –????? ??-???? the thunder?
Storing lightning in the mountains and plains?
So that if the seal were broken by men
The winds would leave in the valley not a trace of Thamud.
I can almost hear the palm trees drinking the rain?
Hear the villages moaning and emigrants
With oar and sail fighting the Gulf
Winds of storm and thunder? singing
"Rain . . . rain . . .
Drip? drop? the rain . . .
And there is hunger in Iraq?
The harvest time scatters the grain in-it?
That crows??????? and locusts ???? may gobble ????? - ????? their fill?
Granaries ???? ??? and stones grind on and on?
Mills turn in the fields? with them men turning . . .
Drip? drop? the rain . . .
Drip
Drop
When came the night for leaving? how many tears we shed?
We made the rain a pretext??? - ?????? not wishing to be blamed
Drip? drop? the rain
Drip? drop? the rain
Since we had been children? the sky
Would be clouded in wintertime?
And down would pour the rain?
And every year when earth turned green the hunger struck us.
Not a year has passed without hunger in Iraq.
Rain . . .
Drip? drop? the rain . . .
Drip? drop . . .
In every drop of rain
A red or yellow color buds from the seeds of flowers.
Every tear wept by the hungry and naked people
And every spilt drop of slaves' blood
Is a smile aimed at a new dawn??
A nipple turning rosy in an infant's lips
In the young world of tomorrow? bringer of life.
Drip...
Drop... the rain . . . In the rain.
Iraq will blossom ???? -????? one day’
I cry out to the Gulf:, "O Gulf?
Giver of pearls? shells and death!"
The echo replies
As if lamenting:
'O Gulf?
Giver of shells and death."
And across the sands from among its lavish???? – ??? –???? ???? ???? gifts
The Gulf scatters fuming ??? – ?????? - ???? froth and shells
And the skeletons of miserable drowned emigrants
Who drank death forever?
From the depths of the Gulf? from the ground of its silence?
And in Iraq a thousand serpents drink the nectar ?????? – ???? ??? ??????
From a flower the Euphrates has nourished with dew.
I hear the echo
Ringing in the Gulf:
"Rain . . .
Drip? drop? the rain . . .
Drip? drop."
In every drop of rain
A red or yellow color buds from the seeds of flowers.
Every tear wept by the hungry and naked people
And every spilt drop of slaves' blood
Is a smile aimed at a new dawn??
A nipple ???? ?????turning rosy in an infant's lips
In the young world of tomorrow? bringer of life.
Still the rain pours down.
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