You Want a Homeland – Riyadh Gharib
You Want a Homeland - Riyadh Gharib
To my wife Widad, whoputs up with me a lot
I was crying, like any father cries and says,
“This is what I have dreamed of all these years;
the time has come to move somewhere else.”
–Riyadh, end of 2009
I see you staring
at a scene that cannot recur
you
and I
and this music that bleeds us
and bystanders on the sidewalks
taking pictures of themselves
I mean their corpses exposed to sudden explosion
Baghdad is the homeland
I don’t know, maybe we’re all mixed up
you are the homeland … I made this choice
one day
when its shrapnel tore into me
I shattered on you
I said
you are the homeland
you give the garden some of your time
you give the children all of your time
yesterday you wept
as you stared
at an old photo of Al-Rasheed Street
I don’t know
in your suitcase
I see sadness
cities where mornings come late
well
you want yogurt and dreamy villages
you want a homeland like your youngest son
he sings whenever he fancies
sleeps
dreams
leaps
hangs from the walls
not a homeland eaten by dead stories
you want me
to look at you
as you stare
at a scene that cannot recur
a homeland whose roses envelop you
whose sunset is a song that tastes of fruit
whose morning is an illusion of Fayrouz
there’s not a taste of hope on your tongue
- Translated by Faiza Sultan and Yvette Neisser Moreno.