Opening Lines of the Poem “Stranger on the Gulf”
Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab expresses his profound feelings in the poem “Stranger on the Gulf”:
The wind gasps in the scorching heat, like a phantom, at dusk,
and the sails are folded or spread for departure.
The Gulf is crowded with those laboring, wandering the seas,
half-naked in their hardship.
On the sands, by the Gulf,
sits the stranger, his perplexed gaze wandering across the waves.
He shatters the pillars of light with the haunting cry he emits,
emerging from the depth of his tormented soul: Iraq.
Like the tide that rises, like a cloud, like tears in the eyes,
the wind screams, “Iraq!”
And the waves echo back, “Iraq, nothing but Iraq.”
Chapter One of the Poem “Stranger on the Gulf”
The sea is vast, and you seem farther away than ever,
and the sea is without you, oh Iraq.
Yesterday, as I passed by the café, I heard you, oh Iraq,
a spinning record,
the cycle of the cosmos in my life, wrapping time around me.
In fleeting moments of safety, though I lost your place,
you remain the face of my mother in the darkness,
her voice slipping away with dreams until I fall asleep.
You are the palm trees I fear when they darken with dusk,
haunted by shadows that snatch away every child who strays
from the paths.
You are the ancient storyteller whispering about a belt,
and how the grave was split open before the beautiful Aphra,
only snagging her braid.
Oh Zahra, do you remember
our blazing oven, crowded with the hands of the cooks?
And my aunt’s soft tales of bygone kings?
Behind the door, like a decree,
shut tight against women,
they fulfilled their desires, for they were the hands of men.
The men would revel and chatter without fatigue.
Do you remember? Do you recall?
Chapter Two of the Poem “Stranger on the Gulf”
We were happy, content,
with those sad tales, because they are the women’s tales.
A multitude of lives and epochs, we were their vigor,
we were the currents in which their essence lay intertwined.
Isn’t that merely a puff of smoke?
A dream and a spinning record? If this is all that remains, where then is solace?
I loved within you, Iraq, the spirit of my soul, or did you embrace me there?
You two – you are the light of my soul – and evening fell,
the night closed in, let your glow shine in the darkness so I won’t lose my way.
If I journey to this foreign land, will our meeting be complete?
The reunion with you and Iraq in my hands is the true encounter.
Longing courses through my veins, like every drop of blood yearning,
desiring, like a drowning man gasping for air.
A fetus yearns as it emerges from the darkness into birth.
I marvel how betrayers can betray.
Can one betray their homeland?
If he betrays what it means to be, how can he truly exist?
The sun shines more beautifully in my homeland than elsewhere, and even darkness,
there is more beautiful, for it embraces Iraq.
Oh, how I sigh, when will I sleep
and feel on my pillow
the scent of your summer nights, oh Iraq?
Conclusion of the Poem “Stranger on the Gulf”
When I awaken that morning, beneath a sky broken by clouds,
and the breezes carry the fragrance of autumn,
I will clear the cobwebs of lingering drowsiness, like a veil
of silk, revealing the hidden and the evident,
remnants of what I almost forgot, clashing with certainty.
And as I extend my hand to dress in my clothes,
what I seek in the shadows of my soul will emerge.
Has hidden joy filled my essence like fog?
Today – as joy rushes upon me unexpectedly – I return,
oh sorrow, I shall not return to Iraq.
Can anyone return
when they lack the means? How can one save money
when you consume what you need in hunger? And how can you spare what you manage
with generosity for food?
We shall weep for Iraq.
For what do you possess but tears
and waiting, in vain, for the winds and the sails?