Alone behind despair… memories gnaw at me until I weaken
And my artistic childhood… amazes me… from the heaviness of my afflictions and feebleness
For here I am a child without childhood… and sorrow is my nurse and embracer
And the vileness of villains frightens them… and I am without vice, without meanness
They feared because evil possesses them… and I am without evil, without faults
And because they know my flaws… and they betrayed and I did not betray
And because they sold their Arabism… and it rose above the sale and price
I chose to suffer and be joyful to them… the howling of madness and adornment of decay
I live like an autumn sparrow without feathers; without nest, without manners
I feed on my pains and play them… and from their echoes I build my abode
And I come like a stray spirit without past; without present, without time
And who will believe that I have a homeland?… my wounds alone are my homeland
Do I live in it and over its soil… like the corpse flung without shroud?
What? Do my brothers and father know… I am a Yemeni without Yemen?
Do I have here or there a homeland?… No, no: only my wounds are my homeland
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translated by
Hatem Al-ShameaThe Journey of Transformation: An Analytical Study of the Novel, The End of A Furious Man
