The poem that didn't want to be written

I was a witness of the war even before I was born

I was a piece of flesh trying to beat

in a womb threatened by anguish

We resisted the hunger of the violent

The rain erased the silence left by the bullets

We washed our nightmares in rivers tinged with blood

and we bit into the darkness made ashes

to face our fear of a new dawn

with death waiting

We saw mothers cry for their children

and wives who eclipsed the day with mourning in their clothes

Every night we clung to the protection of some gods

who still have not shown their faces

and we hide the dreams under the lintel of the door.

Our good luck horseshoe

was the blessed victim of a stray bullet

so that I could believe in omens

I saw the war before my birth

I knew my mother’s crying

and heard the crashing of my father's heartbeat

before they sung me lullabies

I saw the sour orange tree weep for its decomposed fruits

and serve as refuge

to those who under its branches

tried to erase the hell of their memories

And they ask why I do not write poems about the war?

They ask me, though I am still trying to silence the echoing voices of violence in my dreams

Translated by Mark Hoffman

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