Now, It’s Raining in South  Cairo!!

By: Rawda Al-Hajj

Now, It’s raining in South Cairo!!

And I and Egypt are alienated

seeking shelter in a sorrow that is estranged . Between us, the locomotive travels ,

and all the stations we pass by are identical,.

No home to take refuge in there,

and the hurried clock’s hands wound the tenth hour! .

No family, no one waiting,

There’s no meaning that I chase to follow me

I’m only exhausted by a great pain of the collapse of memory

It’s raining in South Cairo!!

And my bitter anguish returns to me,

my old steps toy with me.

Whenever the sky wept and thundered,

my soul was that raining sky.

An ancient pain takes hold of this rain-soaked soul.

Whenever lightning flashed—I used to know them—

the scent of the wet earth rose,

awakening what I had lulled to sleep,

igniting my restless night that carries me there.

And was I, since I came to this land

anything but a guest and a traveler!!

Rain,

and the voice of “Halim,”

red tea,

scattered books,

and longing..

I don’t know to whom, or for what.

But I know

that my heart writhes whenever its sorrows encircle it,

as if bitten by a snake.

I see the knife of longing sliicing through this flank!

Now, It’s raining in South Cairo.

I weep for a land that never ldeparted me,

though I left it, I weep for loved ones who I will carry with me,

even into the next life!.

Or perhaps I weep for my struggle to begin,

to simply begin,

while inside me worlds boil,

a whole universe surges,

and questions. swarm

And no escape..

except into this poem,

which persists in evasion.

I know it

, O,, stubborn and cunning one!

And perhaps I weep for the cracks,

that whenever I think they’ve healed,

a poet’s verse reopens them!.

I weep and the sky weeps with me,

and the whole world sobs.

Longing pours down,

and nostalgia streams down

now, from Cairo’s sky!.