1 Are the occasions of my loss and exhaustion So few to justify, my voice, that you also Become lost and exhausted? 2 You, my voice, were my throat’s nightingale. Now as you have soared further away My throat has appeared to my eye-witness As a cold cage of iron. 3 Nobody can help me in my disaster. The doctors remained silent. The medicines became mute. The prayer trembled between my fingers. The only thing on the phone line was my tears Shouting: hello, hello. 4 As the pit of my grave deepens more and more The poetry I write grows deeper and deeper What an irony! 5 Friends, Pay attention! The nightingale flew away And the crow laughed. 6 When will you come down? Tell me: when will you come down? Or am in front of me Find myself dying member by member? 7 My voice, the bird, come down! I will not whip you as a slave. I will not let you thirst to death Nor shout at you as a mad man. I will not ask you to sing needlessly nor to protest Nor to part with the text When the text gets stupid. Light down, Bird! I will not let Sophocles pull out his creatures’ eyes On the stage of my blood Nor At-Tawhidi 1 burn his books every night In the desert of my dream Nor Al–Maarri 2 die alone As I do And as you do. **** 1: At-Tawhidi is a great Arabic philosopher who burns his book at the end of his life. 2: Al–Maarri is a famous, blind Arabic poet.