Tammuziyyat — On the Other Slope

Dar al-Ahad in Beirut has published the first part of "Tammuziyyat" by the poet and man of letters Fouad Suleiman. These are short pieces on literature, art, and society, with a preface by the owner of the newspaper al-Nahar, the Deputy Ustad Ghassan Tueni. We shall content ourselves for now with publishing one sample of this living, immortal literature, and will return to our readers at another time...

... On the seven seas... in every corner of the earth,
there is one from my country.
One whom the storm uproots from here, from this soil,
and plants on the far slopes of the world, upon the waves,
in the seven seas.

... And no mother has ever choked with grief as the mothers of my country have choked,
casting their young men one after another
into the palm of the demons, onto the waves, beyond the sun,
where no eye can reach.

And Lebanon is a sweet tale, beyond the seas..
a house the sun looks down upon...
and shepherds on the paths.

... For your eyes, my country, these wings that crowd the eagles on the summits,
and these furrowed brows,
and these arms that push back the thickets of the forests — for your eyes, my country, these young men
plant you as thought and depth and goodness on the other slope of the earth.

O God, glory be to You!

Who ordained for these strange saplings, uprooted from these hillsides and these mountains,
such fruitfulness and such shade?

O God, glory be to You — You bear the sweet little country,
stretching its shade over the dome-scraping towers and the domes of the sky...

O God, glory be to You!