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Awaiting a Poem

By Hawa Gamodi

Translated from Arabic by Nariman Youssef

Hawa Gamodi's breathtaking poem asks what poetry can do in the face of bloodshed and destruction.

January 1, 2016

Published in The Arab Spring: Five Years Later

Libya

They await you:
The new poem

They await your downpour through my soul
My hands shaping your features

I stand with my heart agape
To observe this desolate world
As it falls into ruin

Blood covers everything

Prayers no longer know
Where to go

I await you
I listen for your cautious footfall

Yes
The world has become a graveyard
But the sun rises
The breeze caresses a girl’s cheek
The sea does not forsake its blue
The swallows tell me of my childhood
Hidden beneath their wings
And somewhere a boy foretastes a kiss from his lover’s lips

There’s so much love
Beauty
And light

That you may pour down
Fly
Walk barefoot

I am writing you
My resistance to the ruin

I paint a glorious world
Illuminated by a poem
That they await

© Hawa Gamodi. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2016 by Nariman Youssef. All rights reserved.

They await you:
The new poem

They await your downpour through my soul
My hands shaping your features

I stand with my heart agape
To observe this desolate world
As it falls into ruin

Blood covers everything

Prayers no longer know
Where to go

I await you
I listen for your cautious footfall

Yes
The world has become a graveyard
But the sun rises
The breeze caresses a girl’s cheek
The sea does not forsake its blue
The swallows tell me of my childhood
Hidden beneath their wings
And somewhere a boy foretastes a kiss from his lover’s lips

There’s so much love
Beauty
And light

That you may pour down
Fly
Walk barefoot

I am writing you
My resistance to the ruin

I paint a glorious world
Illuminated by a poem
That they await

© Hawa Gamodi. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2016 by Nariman Youssef. All rights reserved.

Hawa Gamodi

Hawa Gamodi is a poet, journalist, critic, and educator.…

Nariman Youssef

Nariman Youssef is a Cairo-born, London-based translator…

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