Iv - University of Salford Institutional Repository

FROM THE DIARY OF A PATIENT FORBIDDEN TO WRITE
A poem written by Nizar Qabbani
You're forbidden, my love, to step into my room;
To touch the white sheets; to feel my icy fingers;
To sit; to whisper, or rest your hands in mine;
To bring from our far-off home in Syria
A swarm of pigeons;
A white lily, or a blood-red rose;
A doll that I can hold close to my heart;
Or read to me, my love, the story of the 'Dwarfs',
Of the 'Sleeping Beauty', or 'The Fairy of the Sea';
For, in the ward of patients disabled of heart,
Love, longing they confiscate; no secret impart.
Don't sob when my obituary in the papers you read;
The mighty stallion could feel tired and weary;
With one hoof in Damascus firmly planted;
And the other, into the celestial sphere.
So, pull yourself together, my love;
For, when the poet decides to dig
With letters, holes on to the global skin,
And bares his heart, like a full-grown apple
For children in slum alleys to nibble;
And roll his poems into loaves to be eaten
By those who hunger for bread and freedom;
Not unexpected, then, would death become
For he who writes, my love; his papers makes black
With the initials of his own heart attack.
(Translated from Arabic by M A M Barghout)
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