Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
A very long time has passed,
and I’ve not asked about you.
Have you thought, even for as long
as it takes a drunk to stumble,
why I no longer ask about you?
Today (I mean my day, not yours)
is not spent in leisure.
I don’t ask who left,
I don’t ask who the traitors are.
The trees are always with me,
the stones of the riverbed are with me,
and the birds.
So,
do you know what it means
that I do not ask about you?
هل تعرفُ أني لا أسألُ عنك ؟
.مَــرَّ زمانٌ ، حقّـاً ، وأنا لا أسألُ عنكَ
:فهل فكّرتَ ، ولو أقصرَ من عثرةِ سكرانَ
لماذا لا أسألُ عنكَ ؟
.اليومُ ( وأعني يومي لا يومَكَ ) لم يَعُدِ الـمُـتـرَفَ
أنا لا أسألُ عَمّنْ غادَرَ
...لا أسألُ عمّنْ غدَرَ
الأشجارُ معي دوماً
أحجارُ مَسِــيلِ النهرِ معي
...والطيرُ
إذاً
هل تعرفُ معنى أني لا أسألُ عنك ؟
برلين 17.06.2010
Saadi Youssef (1934-2021) is considered one of the most important contemporary poets in the Arab world. He was born near Basra, Iraq. Following his experience as a political prisoner in Iraq, he has spent most of his life in exile, working as a teacher and literary journalist throughout North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of over forty books of poetry. Youssef has also published two novels and a book of short stories, and several books of essay and memoir. Youssef, who spent the last two decades of his life in London, was a leading translator to Arabic of works by Walt Whitman, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Federic Garcia Lorca, among many others.
Khaled Mattawa is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. His latest book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf, 2020). A MacArthur Fellow, he is the current editor of Michigan Quarterly Review.
