THE LONG EXILE

-1-
They wrote me on the lips of their children
A poem to their country
Inflamed in fire,
Agony and destruction
And on the death bed they said to me:
O long exile,
Tell them what happened
With the tears of the timid eyes
Which are froze on the childhood cheeks
And never washed the traces of their farness
-2-
.. And they said to me:
Our fatigue tired out
And the age plagued
And from the sweat of our prayers
Drank the prayer book
And the houses where we grew up
And built their walls with our hands
And knitted its terraces denied us,
And the mother who wept for us
We hid her pictures in our eyes,
Before the sunset, we sent her letters,
She did not open,
She did not read,
In the fire place in front of her house
She burnt them.
Surely, due to our long absence she forgot us
And in her pure heart our love died.
-3-
Oh exile of long days,
Oh exile of misery and exhaustion,
Tell them before you tell me!?
What is hidden for me?
**
By Charbel Baini
Translated by Mirna Nehme