saadi youssef: night in al-hamra

A candle on the long road
A candle in the slumbering houses
A candle for the terrified stores
A candle for the bakeries
A candle for the journalist shuddering in an empty office
A candle for the fighter
A candle for the doctor at the sick bed
A candle for the wounded
A candle for honest talk
A candle for staircases
A candle for the hotel crowded with refugees
A candle for the singer
A candle for the broadcasters in a shelter
A candle for a bottle of water
A candle for the air
A candle for two lovers in a stripped apartment
A candle for the sky that has folded
A candle for the beginning
A candle for the end
A candle for the final decision
A candle for conscience
A candle in my hand

--Saadi Youssef (translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa)

I almost bought Iraqi-British (that seems a misnomer; he's been an exile in so many places: Lebanon, Syria, Yugoslavia, France, Yemen, Jordan, Cyprus) poet Saadi Youssef's most recent book while browsing in Bluestocking the other day. In the end I spent the day's money on a different volume, but I'll no doubt return for Without an Alphabet, Without a Face someday soon. The above poem (which is not in that book, I got it from an anthology somewhere) has lurked behind my reading of the newspapers all this month, as it did too this summer while the sky folded over Beirut again. Words Without Borders has several more, as does this site, and this.