Will They Believe
Will the children forgive the generation
that’s trampled by horses of war,
by exile and preparation for departure?
Will they think of us as we were,
a bunch of ambushes in ravines
we’d shake our jealousy
and carve trees into the earth's shirt
to sit under,
we, the factional fighters
who’d shoo the clouds of war out of their vehicles
and peer around our eternal siege
or catch the dead
like sudden fruit fallen on a wasteland?
Will the children forgive what we were,
some missile shepherds
and masters of exile and frenzied celebration,
whenever a neighboring war gestured to us
we rose
to set up in its braids a place
good for love and residence?
The bombing rarely took a rest
the missile launchers rarely returned unharmed
we rarely picked flowers for the dead or went on
with our lives
If only that summer had given us a bit
of time's space before our mad departure
Will they believe?
Copyright Credit: Ghassan Zaqtan, "Will They Believe" from The Silence That Remains: Selected Poems 1982-2003. Copyright © 2017 by Ghassan Zaqtan. Translated by Fady Joudah. Translation copyright © 2017 by Fady Joudah. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.