[lbo-talk] Lament for a Marketplace in Babylon

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://poetryinternational.sdsu.edu/10IraqiLament.htm>
Lament for a Marketplace in Babylon
by Abdul-Karim al-Qasid

On this horizon reaching all the way to God are gravestones
And angels weeping.

What are people waiting for?
Their ship?
Here it comes, borne by the deluge.

In a marketplace now frequented by money changers
With beards
And baggy trousers,
I wonder:
Who gathers the scattered limbs,
Restores the hand to the child's body,
And that breast to the mother,
And who throws open the gates
For hollow-eyed gods coming in from Babylon,
With red chests,
And white furious hair;
I wonder: who?

On the day of March 1st
In the fifth year after the second millennium
A massacre
Took place
In Babylon.

Translated by Salaam Yousif and Brenda Hillman

-- 
Yoshie
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