Original in
I stand now in Sahel Al-Khiyam*
To my right, an apple orchard—
crates, bulldozers, trucks.
I think I've lost the compass.
here,
at Sahel Al-Khiyam
where are your stones, the stones we used to pray on?
where has the birthday gone?
who will carry this weight for us now?
—
Where is the compass?
Where is my grandfather, Shams al-Din, who died in Haifa?
What is it that stands between you and me?
I see you, words stuck in throat
I see you when the wound rises up out of the massacre,
I see when rust eats through my grandfather's soul.
—
This greenery, plain, so clear in front of me—
is it yours?
How did you become this lively?, where did you get this slope of land?
Why do we follow you, without questions?
Stunned akin to the blind, akin to the drowned.
How could you do this, when you are the one in mourning?
Are you still adding up your losses since 1948?
Where did this beauty come from?
The bridge sinks and only the echo comes back.
How did you get all this?
—
Maybe war chose to loosen its weight here
to descend without mercy.
Is this your fate, madam?
Or maybe it was the donkey
that wore a hat one day—
that was the reason.
The sails we raised for you,
the rampart we hid you behind,
the mountains that sheltered you for years,
the gods who kept you safe and sewed up your wounds,
the beekeeper lifting the hive from the ground—
and you, still there, just there.
—
The light drawn furrowing across your forehead,
the scars stretched over our faces,
the losses we inherited from you and hand down again
to the ones we love, and to the ones we lost
Skin bitten to the bone, the mouth of a patient too weak to speak—
why don't we tell the secret out loud?
Shall we lay down the weight we've been trusted to carry?
——-
There are so many moments here.
Shepherds shot in the back.
The fence keeps growing towards the sky.
——
I collide with the ramparts
I am beaten back before I reach the bottom.
I trip over strategy.
I gather up a voice that used to sound like yours.
I join one bank of the river to the other.
I am crossing over, toward you.
——
In the Sahel al-Khiyam, its plain
close to you,
in the middle of it, before the bleeding starts—
I catch a glimpse of you
Maybe
for the last time.
*Al-Khiyam is a town with deep roots in southern Lebanon, set just south of the Litani River in what has become known as the “Yellow Zone”—territory the Israeli army occupied during the last war, in 2026—not far from the foothills of Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh). For decades the town held a distinctive place in the country’s cultural imagination, owing not just to its strategic position and turbulent past but to a literary heritage that ran unusually deep for a town its size. Chief among its landmarks was Al-Dardara, a spring-fed pond whose waters ran through generations of local poetry. It was in this landscape that the celebrated poetic trio of Al-Khiyam took shape—Hassan Abdalla, Mohammad Abdalla, and Issam Abdalla—writers who turned the town’s fields and waters and shared memory into lasting verse. Habib Sadek and others added to that same literary presence over the years. The recent Israeli wars on Lebanon, in 2023–2024 and again in 2026, left Al-Khiyam devastated, much of it reduced to rubble. But even as its physical fabric was erased, the town endures in its literature and its memory—in the poetic imagination that once drew, and still draws, its sense of belonging from the waters of Al-Dardara.
ARABIC
أنا الآن في سهلِ الخيام
أرى على اليمينِ حقلَ تُفَّاح
صناديقَ وجرَّافاتٍ وشاحناتٍ
أخشى أن أكونَ أضعتُ البوصَلة.
مِنْ هنا
مِنْ سهلِ الخيام
أين حجارتُكِ التي سنُصلِّي عليها؟
أينَ هوَ يومُ الميلاد؟
مَنْ يحملُ عنا هذه الأوزار؟
■■
أينَ البُوصَلة؟
أينَ جدِّي شمس الدِّين الذي ماتَ في حيفا؟
ما الذي يفصلُني عنكِ؟
أراكِ حينَ يعلقُ الحديثُ في الفمِ
حينَ يخرجُ الجُرحُ مِنَ المجزرة
حين يأكلُ الصَّدأ روحَ جدِّي.
■■
الخضرةُ الواضحةُ أمامي
هلْ هيَ لكِ؟
مِنْ أينَ لكِ هذهِ الحياة وهذا السَّفح؟
لمَ نسيرُ خلفَكِ بلا حسيبٍ أو رقيب
مشدوهينَ كالعميانِ، غرقى؟!
أنَّى لكِ هذا وأنتِ ثكلى
توضِّبينَ خساراتِكِ منذُ 1948؟
أنَّى لكِ هذا الحُسْنُ؟
يغورُ الجسرُ ويرتدُّ الصَّدى.
أنَّى لكِ هذا؟
■■
ربما
قرَّرَتِ الحربُ أنْ تضعَ أوزارَها هُنا
أنْ تهبطَ بلا شَفقة.
هل هو قدرُكِ أيتها السيدة؟
ربَّما الحمارُ الذي لبِسَ قُبَّعةً ذاتَ يوم
كان السبب في ذلك.
الأشرعةُ التي هيَّأناها
المتراسُ الَّذي خبَّأناكِ خلفَهُ
الجبالُ التي غطَّتْكِ لسنواتٍ
الآلهةُ التي حرستْكِ وضمدَتْ جراحَكِ
النحَّالُ الذي يُخرِجُ قفيره.
أنتِ هناكَ فقط.
■■
النورُ المرسومُ على جبينِكِ
النُّدوبُ الممدَّدةُ على وجوهِنا
الخساراتُ التي ورثناها عنكِ، ونورِثُها الأحبَّةَ وأهلَ الفقد،
الجلودُ الملدوغةُ وفمُ المريضِ الضَّعيف
لمَ لا نقولُ سرَّنا
نبوحُ بثقلِ الأمانةِ المخبَّأة؟
■■
كثيرةٌ هيَ اللَّحظاتُ ها هُنا
الرعاةُ يتلقونَ رَصَاصَةً مِنَ الخَلْفِ
السِّياجُ يرتفِعُ بِلا تَوَقُّف.
■■
أشتبكُ مع المتراس
أنهَزِمُ على مسافةٍ مِنَ القاع
أتعثَّر بالاستراتيجيَّة
أستجمعُ صوتًا كانَ يُشبِهُكِ
أصِلُ ضفةً بأخرى
أعبرُ إليكِ.
■■
في سهلِ الخيام
على مقربةٍ منكِ
في الوسطِ وقبلَ النَّزيف
أراكِ
ربما
لمرةٍ أخيرة.
