رسالة من شهيد Message from a Martyr

رسالة من شهيد

رصاصك سدد فالصدور مواقد
وبالأرض من همي جوى متصاعد
رصاصك سدد يا حقود فلا أنا
من القتل مزور ولا أنا شارد
أنا من دمي تخضر أرضي وتنتشي
وينبت جيل يألف الهم واعد
وتنبت من كل الشظيات أذرع
وتنبت هامات وتنمو سواعد
تراهن أن تبقى لها الأرض موطناً
وفي كل فج كل صوب تجالد
أنا الأرض عشقي حيث كنت يظل بي
إليها حنين عالق الحب آبد
ولست أبالي أن يفجر صاعق
ولست أبالي أن يهدم راعد
 

Message from a Martyr

Fire your bullets -- our hearts are already ablaze
       In this land, grief wells up from my distress
Fire your bullets -- you villain -- for I
       Won't play at murder or run away
My blood fertilises and refreshes this land
       And plants a promising generation that is fully conscious
Limbs grow from seeds of shrapnel
       Hands are formed and crowns spring
That bet this land will always be their home --
       In every corner they stand their ground
Wherever I am, this land is my passion
       Nostalgia is fused with this timeless love
I don't care if there are explosions
       I don't mind the annihilating thunder
 

This Arabic poem, written in classical metre, was far from easy to translate. If you compare the opening lines of the literal and final versions, you’ll see that ‘pencils’ becomes bullets – the word for ‘lead’ in Arabic can mean both the lead running through a pencil and a bullet.

‘Message from a Martyr’ is very typical of many contemporary poems written in Arabic in response to the Palestinian crisis. Although Palestine isn’t mentioned in the poem, it’s clear that the country and its struggles are its subject.

Message of a Martyr

Your pencil aimed such that the output was the hearth
            and in the earth among my concerns is the rising air 
Your pencil aimed, O jab [piqure], and not I
            from murder feigned, nor I a runaway
I, from my blood, my land greens and enlivens
            And a generation grows up familiar with the concern as a   
                                                                       promise
And grows arms from every shore
            grows worries and develops wings
They take out mortgages in order to remain in their home land
            In all quarters every direction it freezes
I am the earth my love where I used to stay
            Theres is nostalgia stuck to love eternal
I do not mind waking at dawn staggering
            I do not mind destroying the thundering
 

Original Poem by

Mbarka Mint al-Barra’

Translated by

Joel Mitchell with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Mauritania