نجـــوم الغانــــم
Nujoom Alghanem
Selected Poems
Her Prayers
My mother lets her prayers escape
to every other morning,
to every passer-by who carries our news,
as she exchanges blames with God
for He has not yet granted her wishes.
Port
Fever entraps her
To sanatoriums
And gardens she thinks will cure her pains
But she falls once more
Colliding with her blood
As if it were a life jacket.
The Horizon
I look at the range
The walls are mighty
And so are the sorrows.
Everything
I will leave everything in place
Even the dust accumulated over the trees
So that they too will know
How our bodies ache when no one touches them.
The Soul Shivers
Scattered by the wind…
Scattered by the wind…
Scattered…
That’s how
She saw
Her death.
Gratitude
I will be happy
I told my heart that made me dizzy with its sorrows
And I lit a candle for the angels
And another one
For the love that enlightened me.
Good for Them
A toast
And the bow of the rain
To those who wound
And profess innocence
When your eyes look into theirs.
Yesterday
It was just yesterday when we met,
We inscribed our signatures
On the long roads.
It was just yesterday when we faked
The first reason to be together,
And we spent the first day
adorning our tent.
It was just yesterday,
I swear it was just yesterday.
Then, what are all those years
That every time we counted
another is added?
No Use
Every time I raise my head to the sky
The pains swell
And the chambers of my heart
are filled with tears.
Passages
Every night
The chambers become narrower
Every night
The maze becomes wider.
***
The knotted cloud behind the fence,
The white cloud,
Lighted my long night with its bitter whiteness
It was following my heart
While it was searching for its torch
In the darkness.
***
Loneliness crawls like
a serpent over the walls
It avoids the light of the window
And prepared
To pluck out the tranquility of the night.
***
Let sorrow fade away
Just for today
Just for now.
***
Translated by Dr. Omnia Amin