We Were Born in War
Poem by Ibrahim Al-Baglati, Egypt
(Translated from Arabic by Ashraf Aboul-Yazid)

We were born in war
We learned in war
We married in war
We had our children in war
We passed sixty—
And the war is still raging.

Prose poetry
Doesn’t always have to be beautiful,
Nor must it endlessly reproduce the same irony.
Its duty is to serve
As a document against ugliness—
And against the usurping hand.

We were born in war—
Not necessarily on the front line,
Nor in the furnace of confrontation,
But we lived—
And our hands were never
In cold water.

The land,
The country,
The house,
The keys—
Were called Palestine.
Still called Palestine.

And we have the right
To blame the Arabized Arabs,
To search the political lexicon of civilization,
Where eloquence means
To be besieged.

And it is better—
To be dead.

The war is still raging.
And life itself—
A tiny square
Between the sea
And the window.

Ibrahim is not from here,
But he passed—according to the Old Testament—
By a stone on the road,
Placed his organ on it,
And cut off a piece of flesh.

The Lord saw that it was good
And said to him:
Thus we sealed the covenant.
From water to water
Your offspring will build a state
Striving toward the darkness
That precedes the abyss.

The world is a big box
Filled with countless smaller boxes—
So how can you think outside the box
When you’re inside it?

If you like the trend, share it.
And know:
He who opened the Nakba’s box
Can never close it.

Now sit in a garden
Surrounded by royal palms and eucalyptus—
An old man
Unable to wear a full suit of armor
Or ignite a total war—
But able to be an ant
Gnawing at false peace
And the shell of counterfeit civilization.

November 2023