About war I’m talking
Faleeha Hassan
What if I slept all that time
Or I had hibernated from 1980 to 1988?
To be a safe bear
Or wood frog with full body parts
Is much better than being locked in a damaged soul
Your meaning of existence is peeling harshly
Whenever the storm of war is blowing,
Yes, I remember
In the time of war
The soldiers’ mothers
Are unable to pass their hands through the thickness of the walls of absence,
To gently smooth the hair of their boys
Or wipe their dusty faces,
Time after time disappointment hits them
like a squash ball in the hand of a beginner player
While hope keeps escaping from their hearts as nimble as a cat
In the end they will not cry
But their eyes are melting drop by drop
Now invisibles like us they wish they could heal from the brain perforating siren
And not wake up every day shouting in the ears of the house
I am here, I am here
Like someone reading a unmemorized manuscript
Invisibles like us afraid one day the lips of the bombs
Will drown them with hot kisses
………………….
1980 to 1988 , the duration of the Iran – Iraqi war
wood frog, this frog dies in the winter time and comes back to life in summer
Or I had hibernated from 1980 to 1988?
To be a safe bear
Or wood frog with full body parts
Is much better than being locked in a damaged soul
Your meaning of existence is peeling harshly
Whenever the storm of war is blowing,
Yes, I remember
In the time of war
The soldiers’ mothers
Are unable to pass their hands through the thickness of the walls of absence,
To gently smooth the hair of their boys
Or wipe their dusty faces,
Time after time disappointment hits them
like a squash ball in the hand of a beginner player
While hope keeps escaping from their hearts as nimble as a cat
In the end they will not cry
But their eyes are melting drop by drop
Now invisibles like us they wish they could heal from the brain perforating siren
And not wake up every day shouting in the ears of the house
I am here, I am here
Like someone reading a unmemorized manuscript
Invisibles like us afraid one day the lips of the bombs
Will drown them with hot kisses
………………….
1980 to 1988 , the duration of the Iran – Iraqi war
wood frog, this frog dies in the winter time and comes back to life in summer
Faleeha Hassan is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, teacher, and editor. She is from Iraq and now lives in the United States as a refugee. The first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq, she earned her master’s degree in Arabic literature and has published 25 books. Her poems have been translated into 17 languages, and she’s received many awards in Iraq and throughout the Middle East for her poetry and short stories. Translations of her writing have appeared in The Guardian, The Galway Review, Words Without Borders, The Brooklyn Rail/InTranslation, Scarlet Leaf Review, and The American Poetry Review, amongst others. She was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 and won the Pushcart Prize and the Moonstone Chapbook Contest in 2019. She is the Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration Award from SJ magazine 2020 and Winner of Grand Jury Award of the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021.
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