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.
