POETREE

The following poem is by Taha Muhammad Ali, a Palestinian poet I absolutely adore. The translation is by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi and Gabriel Levin, and it's from the collection So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2005.

If, over this world, there's a ruler
who holds in his hands bestowal and seizure
at whose command seeds are sewn,
as with his will the harvest ripens,
I turn in prayer, asking him
to decree for the hour of my demise,
when my days draw to an end,
that I'll be sitting and taking a sip
of weak tea with a little sugar
from my favorite glass
in the gentlest shade of the late afternoon
during the summer
And if not tea and afternoon,
then let it be the hour
of my sweet sleep just after the dawn.

And may my compensation be-
if in fact I see compensation-
I who during my time in this world
didn't split open an ant's belly
and never deprived an orphan of money,
didn't cheat on measures of oil
or violate a swallow's veil;
who always lit a lamp
at the shrine of our lord, Shihab a-Din,
on Friday evening,
and never sought to beat my friends
or neighbors at games,
or even those I simply knew;
I who stole neither wheat nor grain
and did not pilfer tools-
would ask-
that now, for me, it be ordained
that once a month,
or every other,
I be allowed to see
the one my vision has been denied-
since that day I parted
from her when we were young.

But for the pleasures of the world to come,
all I'll ask
of them will be-
the bliss of sleep, and tea.