For Sahib Ash-Shahir* * Poet, After twenty years of death How has become the color of your spring smile? How has become the appearance of the child In your childish soul? To my Double-Tongued friends *** Dear friends, Thank you because, by your bitter hatred, You led me to the river of sweet love Till I reached its important bottom Where I brought out the pearls of its speech Pearl by pearl. To my Griefs: *** Thank you because you have not fired The coup de grace at me up to now. To Rain *** Thank you because you fall down in Tigris's lap As the beggars' screams fall upon the old bridge As the seagulls fall upon the rusty boats As mercy falls on the Earth. When they search for an embracing heart And do not find They will go back to where they come from. To winter: *** Thank you small prophet. Thank you for your clouds reaching at last By registered mail. Thank you for your clouds coming With childhood stamps pasted on. Once I removed the stamps I began to drown And my heart began to burn In the moans of letters, In the screams of words And the flood of dots. To the World Stamps: *** Thank you …. If the whole of you have gathered Together with your birds, crowns and suns You will not bring back to me One single dream of my childhood dreams Which the postman had stolen. To Time: *** Thank you my big brother. Thank you handsome hangman. Thank you because you have not arrested me On a charge of begging the meaning From the double – tongued countries And the masses of dissidents. To Beauty: *** Thank you because you have discovered The blueness in my soul Whereas I have discovered the lines in your hands. You have discovered the spring in my words Whereas I have discovered the meaning in your lips. You have discovered the music in my letters Whereas I have discovered my soul sliding Into your soul to the extent of delirium. To the Dot: *** Thank you for your great patience with me Until the loss of my final letters gets in a false pub Or in a street selling the not-for-sale Or in a very old city Or a history upon which the dogs made water And the spears of barbarians ate its good fish. *** Sahib Ash-Shahir*: an Iraqi poet who died in the Iraq- Iran war when he was only 27 years old TM