Waiting!

On February 21, at exactly noontime, heavy rains fell on Beirut, lasting an hour and a half...

And the mothers, anxious at the windows, were awaiting their children on their way home from school...

... I know not — do your waters pour down from the sky, or do you burst up from the flanks of the earth, O rains!..

Woe is me! From where have they come, these long, long, close-woven threads, binding earth to sky?

They fill the gutters

And the channels overflow with them

And the gardens and the roads turn into little lakes?

Here are the waters, all but drowning everything... their roar thunders in my ears, and their great drops beat upon my window with a mad violence!

And I take fright, and tremble!

I wonder... where is my child now!?...

... We were awaiting your visit, O rains, but you mistook the time; you did not choose it well..

Is noon the hour for visiting — when the children, on their way home from school, are pacing the roads with their little steps, to reach their mothers' arms, where warmth and tenderness are, and where the good lunch waits?..

I adjure you, O winds... I adjure you, if you meet my child hurrying along, hugging his books to his chest... bear gently upon the long threads, that they may push one another aside, lest he come home with hair and wing drenched?..

And you, little hollows brimming with water... the rains have planted you in the roads — in all the roads —

Will you not swerve a little from my little one's path, lest his foot sink into your water and your mud!?

And O Lord! You by whose will these torrents descend... will You not move the little children to linger where they are...

Under the awnings of the shops

Or in the neighboring houses...

Move them, O God, not to risk themselves and breast the water...

And protect our children, O Lord, and bring them back to us — for the good lunch is on the fire... and our hearts... are waiting for them!