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The Travail of a Child Who Has Left the Land of the Holy Shrines
`Father, where is the way out?
When are we to have a settled home?
Oh, Father, do you not
See encircling danger?
Long have you made me travel, Father,
Through deserts sands
and through settled lands.
Long have you made me travel, Father,
In many a sloping valley,
So I forget my kinsfolk,
My cousins, and all men.
How is it our house has vanished
From our sight, leaving no trace?
Why has my mother not returned?
How strange! Has she taken a taste to travel?
And my dear brother — may I be his ransom!
Time has passed and he does not appear.
Why in our area do we see
Nothing but parapets and pits?
Is it because Rome has come
Manipulating funds and media?
You, Father, do not crave
An easy living from mankind.
It is eternity that awaits us
If God should will us to prevail.
Tell me, Father, for I find
No brief, enlightening explanation."
"Forgive me, son, for I am struck
Both powerless and speechless.
My tongue is tied. My eyes are flowing springs.
My consciousness is hell.
What can I say when living in a world
Of contention and of recklessness?
What can I utter to a world bereft
Of physical and moral vision,
Where nations are bought and sold
In an inflationary and speculative trade?
Forgive me, son, for nothing do I see
In our terrain but a declivity.
A decade has passed, whose years were spent
In homelessness and wanderings.
Of whom do you enquire? Of a people
Reduced to stupor?
I have migrated westward
To a land where flows the Nile.
Of Khartoum I love the character,
But I was not permitted to reside.
So then I traveled eastward
Where there are men of radiant brows.
Kabul holds its head up high
Despite the hardship and the danger.
Kabul, with a smiling face,
Offers all-comers shelter and help.
A Sheikh there appears
A lion who strikes terror when he roars,
As, marked by manliness and pride,
Does our commander."
"Why, Father, have they sent
These missiles, thick as rain,
Showing mercy neither to a child
Nor to a man shattered by old age?
Father, what has happened
So we are pursued by perils?
Father, what has happened
So your likenesses are depicted?
Is your redeeming of an ancient house
A crime that cannot be forgiven?
Here are we, [locked] in tragedy:
All safety gone — it does not show itself.
It is a world of criminality, my son,
Where children are, like cattle, slaughtered.
Zion is murdering my brothers,
And the Arabs hold a congress!
They are America's henchmen,
Blinded and devoid of vision.
[Nothing but] ink on paper. They neither
Are truthful, nor have they made a difference.
Why have they not equipped a force
To shield the little one from harm?
This, by your Lord, is a major brand
Of shame to be recorded,
A treachery being pieced together —
Is our defense to come from traitors?
I swear by God the great
`Father, where is the way out?
When are we to have a settled home?
Oh, Father, do you not
See encircling danger?
Long have you made me travel, Father,
Through deserts sands
and through settled lands.
Long have you made me travel, Father,
In many a sloping valley,
So I forget my kinsfolk,
My cousins, and all men.
How is it our house has vanished
From our sight, leaving no trace?
Why has my mother not returned?
How strange! Has she taken a taste to travel?
And my dear brother — may I be his ransom!
Time has passed and he does not appear.
Why in our area do we see
Nothing but parapets and pits?
Is it because Rome has come
Manipulating funds and media?
You, Father, do not crave
An easy living from mankind.
It is eternity that awaits us
If God should will us to prevail.
Tell me, Father, for I find
No brief, enlightening explanation."
"Forgive me, son, for I am struck
Both powerless and speechless.
My tongue is tied. My eyes are flowing springs.
My consciousness is hell.
What can I say when living in a world
Of contention and of recklessness?
What can I utter to a world bereft
Of physical and moral vision,
Where nations are bought and sold
In an inflationary and speculative trade?
Forgive me, son, for nothing do I see
In our terrain but a declivity.
A decade has passed, whose years were spent
In homelessness and wanderings.
Of whom do you enquire? Of a people
Reduced to stupor?
I have migrated westward
To a land where flows the Nile.
Of Khartoum I love the character,
But I was not permitted to reside.
So then I traveled eastward
Where there are men of radiant brows.
Kabul holds its head up high
Despite the hardship and the danger.
Kabul, with a smiling face,
Offers all-comers shelter and help.
A Sheikh there appears
A lion who strikes terror when he roars,
As, marked by manliness and pride,
Does our commander."
"Why, Father, have they sent
These missiles, thick as rain,
Showing mercy neither to a child
Nor to a man shattered by old age?
Father, what has happened
So we are pursued by perils?
Father, what has happened
So your likenesses are depicted?
Is your redeeming of an ancient house
A crime that cannot be forgiven?
Here are we, [locked] in tragedy:
All safety gone — it does not show itself.
It is a world of criminality, my son,
Where children are, like cattle, slaughtered.
Zion is murdering my brothers,
And the Arabs hold a congress!
They are America's henchmen,
Blinded and devoid of vision.
[Nothing but] ink on paper. They neither
Are truthful, nor have they made a difference.
Why have they not equipped a force
To shield the little one from harm?
This, by your Lord, is a major brand
Of shame to be recorded,
A treachery being pieced together —
Is our defense to come from traitors?
I swear by God the great
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