To Christ on his Birthday - poem by Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003)

 To Christ on his Birthday- poem by Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003)

 

Lord, glory of the universes

On your birthday this year

All the joys of Jerusalem are crucified

All the bells, O Lord

Are silent!

For two thousand years,

They haven't been silent on your

birthdays,

Except this year

The domes are now in mourning

Black is wrapped in black

On the Via Dolorosa,

Jerusalem is whipped under the cross

Bleeding

On the hands of the executioner.

The world is adamant to the tragedy

The light has departed from

that lost ruthless master

Who did not light one candle

Who did not shed one tear

To wash the sorrows of Jerusalem.

 

 

Palestinian poet and memoirist Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003) — whose acclaimed autobiography, A Mountainous Journey, was translated to English by Olive E. Kenny and Naomi Shihab Nye

 

She was born in Nablus to a literary family; studied English literature at Oxford; and won acclaim and literary prizes for her poetry, in Arabic and in translation. 

Poetry Fadwa Tuqan

She was born in Nablus to a literary family; studied English literature at Oxford; and won acclaim and literary prizes for her poetry, in Arabic and in translation.

The poet Abbas Beydoun wrote, after her death, “Fadwa was an original poet in her own right, writing from her own experiences and for her late brothers, Ibrahim Tuqan, the most famous Palestinian poet of the time; and for her second brother, who died in a tragic accident. Fadwa stood up as an Electra in mourning between two dead brothers, shouldering the pain of the family, which we can easily call Palestine. Poetry came to her in the image of the Palestinian fate; ultimately her choice to write poetry was not as important as her real mission, which fell somewhere between that of Joan of Arc and al-Khansa.”

 https://arablit.org/2020/03/01/born-on-this-day-7-poems-by-fadwa-tuqan/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]  

Obituary in The Guardian

 

Fadwa Tuqan, poet, born March 1 1917; died December 12 2003 Tuqan gained an international audience after her poetry was translated into English in the 1980s. Young Arab-Americans read her work to rediscover their roots; Israeli and Jewish feminists divined a sympathetic resonance from their sister across the "green line". She did not marry or have children.