An Arab-Palestinian poet from Israel Moen Shalabia graduated from Haifa University and is now staying in Galilei. His writing career started in 1976 with the publication of his first anthology at the age of 18. Moen Shalabia to date published 9 poetry and prose books and numerous anthologies with international writers. He participated in many poem festivals in Israel and overseas. His works were published, in newspapers and magazines in Israel and abroad. They were translated and published in many foreign languages. In 2000 he received an award by Palestinian Ministry of Education for his efforts on Palestinian issues concerning justice and freedom. In 2008 he received an award from Arab Intellectual Forum for his writings. His poems won many prizes and awards in poem festivals he attended. He won jointly with another poet a major award by The General Federation of Arab Writers for 2018.
Don’t cry for me Palestine
By: Moaen Shalabia
Over the wind I have prepared my poem that has been taken captive about the land that has
fled from my hands When the darkness dubb the veil
And when the place trickled out, over my wreckage
It is the state of the wind Scattering its
silver wound To spread the mark of tribes
Over what has preceded from my speech
It is the dazzlement of the inviting soul Becoming longer
behind the kindling of words To tower over the
waters of the spirit And what has lingered from my
time
They have lowered their voices on the sap of the wish And
covered my loud pain In the hollow of the
flutes They came behind the remnants of
lofty prophecies Carrying the pickaxes of divine
weakness And they did not say
anything about the birds’ nests Of covering jest
And about the way of the primitive field
It is a cry of the wilderness In the pulpits of
my desert which Have not, on any day,
withdrawn themselves from the stallion of the spirit In this soft Jalil
And that which is restless from my heap
No wind carries me to you So that we
can distribute amongst ourselves the absence which
Distributes the memory to you
No … we have not become separate since our separation
Close to the narrow street of absence
No … we have not met And the embrace
is the embrace
How can I gather the scattered dross Upon the
realm of her landing place And this night is
your night?! How can I, and I see
you embracing each other? The spikes of enclosing pain,
on the waist of a storm She loathed the dozing draft of
Mount Carmel
On the shoulder of the poem and what shined in your brilliance!
How can I And I am the Jalili
that set down as a resident here On a wave she
shook her fingertips Behind the window of
reminding each other
Upon anxiety, upon anxiety Take what you
want from the motives of the heart And the calamity,
and the ancient love Take what you want
For this ritual is cunning
Behind the window of reminding each other
The sea carries the possibility of clouds for the slivers of seducers
A grey texture In the
hesitation of burning lust to return and set out
For the slivers is the map of time And
the map of the place in the vessel of pride The slivers are
the gales of gulls behind the window of desolation The slivers are
the union of body with the souls The slivers are the
dissolutions of youthful passion with the godhead The slivers
are the slashes, shouting then slumbering The slivers are
our Sufi intoxication In attaching mankind to the
Everlasting The slivers are the exodus of salts in the
wombs The slivers are our grief that has been shed
At the lamp of barriers and borders The slivers
are the representatives of time upon the scarcities of the mountains The
slivers are sudden death for the false god The slivers are
the loftiness of the spirit in the eulogy Towards the dreamy idea
Between poetry and comedy
Upon anxiety, upon anxiety, I shall
hide the moaning of dry clay I
begin my yellow journey
Gradually, as if I have set foot here before On
this path I have walked I
embraced the letters and had intercourse with the language
As if I “I am the most desirable and the most desirable is I”
O my throne I lean upon, and I am in harmony with a tomb
Between reality and fantasy Where
there are the springs of revelation and vision There is
my existence in contemplating humanity When the sky
weeps on a helpless cry O my bier, it
trembled … in the eternal return
Starved on a grassy surface towards the stream of the circuit
I carry my sad poem which has not, on any day, fought the curse of memory
Its traits, its reflections, its spoils, the imitation of transgression
And the spirit of celebration in tragedy Have the desires
grown??
This is the question of the wretched/the lovers and what has not been permitted Are the
homelands bursting into leaf?
Lost am I between the answer and the question Upon
anxiety I entered And the heart was
forgetful The destruction entered and the
reverberation radiated The ribs quivered here and there
Then discernment is perfected And the
slivers are the conclusion of my poem The slivers are the
congestion of my limbs The slivers are early rain in
the imagination of things
I don’t know the poets But I threw
my poem in the wind I occupy the way station
And the wind adorned me with its ring, I rushed into the space
No land carries me And no
horizon confines me As if I, despite
the remoteness of death And how remote death
is The magnanimity in your hands clothes
me As if I am
Now Free!
(Translated by Malaysian poet Rokiah Hashim)
