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: 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.