This poem written by Libyan poet and journalist Rabee Shrair some years ago for his home town Zawya, the translation was made possible with the help of a fellow Libyan translator and dedicate to our brave friend Rabee who has been detained and tortured by the Gaddafi regime.
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Refreshing as nothingness
Monotonous as our state television after mid night.
Your hardship is prolonged
And my poems are luxurious
A greatness of poetics outbreaks in the exiles
While your space is brimful of emptiness
Your letters have an aroma of similarity
Your poetry is unspecified alike!
In its flesh,
Its language
So, be an atom of my soul
And come here
To halt our mad march!
Oh my city!
Imagine if I have been extracted from you…
To grant you the honour of having you in me
How marvellous is our being in us!
And our dissolution in non-water essence that defies itself.
Oh! My little kin, how much do I love you?
My acute angle*
Too much
Too much
Too much
You who reincarnated the farms of walls!
The missing from the calendar of villages
The oscillating floor in the wind!
And the purity of the place from the place!
Who bears me…“I”
With such weight
O…N…L…Y
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* Angle: Refereeing to the Arabic meaning of the poet’s city “Zawya”.
