If Only I Were

If only I were a sparrow in my own country!
The breeze of Lebanon would carry my songs,
swaying the streams, setting the valley dancing,
and on the boughs I would trill my fill,
and my hunter would shoot me down for food!

***

And I would be glad
if a hungry man brought me down —
but on one condition: that he be
a hunter from Lebanon.

***

My soul be ransom for the land of my forefathers,
and my soul a ransom for my country — and for my country...

If only I were

If only I were some green ear of wheat —
and no sooner had I put on my yellow dress
than there she'd come, gleaning behind the reaper
among the stubble, that dark shepherdess.

***

May she have the wit
to come near and pick me up,
and on palms scored by the sickle's cuts
shell out my grains with love.

***

And if the watchman saw her,
I do not think he would wrong her —
her neck: the sun,
this season, has flayed it!!

***

And July has painted her cheek ember-red,
and the beads of her sweat run down red.

***

Barefoot upon the thorns,
perishing of hunger —
O master of the threshing floor,
be a Lebanese!

***

Where is your kindness, where?!
She is your sister — how can you have the heart?
Give her some of the sheaves —
if only... an armful or two.

***

Do not say "tomorrow"! Who can count on tomorrow?
Life is a doze, and the world a drunken spell!