Translations - When She Appeared, Swaying by Lisan ad-Din ibn al-Khatib

When she appeared, swaying, she softened Youth and Coquetry.
My love, her beauty enticed us (together); I (would) sacrifice myself for her; is there (a possibility of) a connection?

She adumbrated with her gander; captured us in gardens between the shadows.
A twig was charmed, when she sang her fantasy, and bent (in infatuation).

My menace, O my fuddle, I have no one to compassionate my grievance,
with love, of agony, other than the owner of Beauty.

Translations: O My Son by Adam Fathy

Do not cry, for the sorrows of the youth
go like a dream with dawn,
and soon you will get older, O my son,
and want for tears, but they will not flow.

If rain stayed up with us,
or the cold covered our streets,
then warmth will build our limbs,
and the flames of the Earth will flow in us.

And if a song is hoarsely sung to you,
or a bare foot groaned,
then the suns of your comrades will come,
and they will rise from the wrath of poverty

Translations: Nothing Pleases Me by Mahmud Darwish

A bus Passenger says:

“Nothing pleases me. Not the radio,
nor the morning papers,
nor the castles on the hills.
I want to cry.”

The Driver says:
“Await the arrival to the stop,
and cry alone all you can.”

The Lady says:
“I too, nothing pleases me.
I showed my son my grave,
so he liked it, and slept,
and did not bid me farewell.”

The Academic says:
“Me neither, nothing pleases me.
I studied archaeology without
finding identity in the rocks.
Am I truly me?”

Translations: Do Not Reconcile by Amal Dunqul

(1)
Do not reconcile!
Even if they offered you gold!
Suppose I exsect your eyes
then in their place fix two jewels…
do you see?
They are un-buyable things.
Childhood memories between your brother and yourself.
Your (both) sense – suddenly – of manhood,
this modesty which suppresses yearn when you embrace him,
the silence – smiling – to reprimand your mother,
as if you are,
still two children.
That eternal tranquility between you,
that two swords: your sword,
two voices: your voice,
that if you died:
there is a master for the house,
and a father for the child.
Does my blood become – in your eyes – water?
Do you forget my bloodstained attire;
wear – over my blood – clothes embroidered with threads (of gold/silver)?!
It is war!
It may heavy the heart...
but behind you is the shame of the Arabs!
Do not reconcile,
nor mean escape!

Bilingual Contemplations

I am, as you could have guessed from my name, not of an English-speaking nationality. I grew, however, to speak in two tongues – Arabic and English (almost polar differences) – with near-equal fluency, such that I was once described as having two mother tongues.

Right from age 2, I went to a British nursery, up until graduating from Year 13 from a British-curriculum school. Of course, at home, the medium of communication was not English, but it was English movies that I watched and English music that I listened to and English novels that I read.

This culminated, in my mid-teens, to a very serious campaign to better my English and the art of using it, be it speech or writing, such that I might be able to articulate as clearly as possible any idea. It seemed nearly a superpower to be able to transfer information with every attachable emotion and expression to almost everyone in the world.