We Lived Happily During the War

                                                             by Ilya Kaminsky

 

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

 

protested

but not enough, we opposed them but not

 

enough. I was

in my bed, around my bed America

 

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

 

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

 

In the sixth month

of a disastrous reign in the house of money

 

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,

our great country of money, we (forgive us)

 

lived happily during the war.

 

 

To Our Land

                        by Mahmoud Darwish

                        translated by Fady Joudah

To our land,

and it is the one near the word of god,

a ceiling of clouds

To our land,

and it is the one far from the adjectives of nouns,

the map of absence

To our land,

and it is the one tiny as a sesame seed,

a heavenly horizon ... and a hidden chasm

To our land,

and it is the one poor as a grouse’s wings,

holy books ... and an identity wound

To our land,

and it is the one surrounded with torn hills,

the ambush of a new past

To our land, and it is a prize of war,

the freedom to die from longing and burning

and our land, in its bloodied night,

is a jewel that glimmers for the far upon the far

and illuminates what’s outside it ...

As for us, inside,

we suffocate more!

 

 

The End and the Beginning

                                by Wisława Szymborska

                                translated by Joanna Trzeciak

After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

 

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

 

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

 

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

 

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

 

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

 

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

 

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

 

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

 

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.