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Stand up! Get up!
Carry your bed and follow
me.
Let’s leave this
ungrateful land
This land…
That savors the decaying
cadavers of its sons
A land satiated by the
blood of its children.
Let’s leave these poor
people
Defeated, fragmented
Knowing nothing but
selfishness,
Servicing foreigners,
And worshipping the
hollow love of prestige.
What is left for us
In these destroyed cities
Where no peace remains
And doors are unbolted
only to conquerors,
To bats… to others?
To hunters preying,
over the hills of the
East, North, and South,
for chances to lash our
cities,
To empty them of their
national commitment
And annex them to their
own waste lands,
Transforming fecundity to
infertility
And civility to
wilderness.
O my country!
They all killed you
And got drunk over your
pure blood
Your people… your very
own
Prefer the souls of
others
Over the freshness of
your bright face.
They brag with others’
daggers
Slaying the throats of
their kin;
Draw the aliens’ whips
Inflaming the backs of
their brothers;
Welcome shame stepping on
the pride of your cedars
Blackening the whiteness
of your hands…
All of them, my country,
crucified you
And cast lots over your
garment.
They all left you alone
In the olive orchard
And delivered you to the
mercenary soldiers
Your wailing fell on
their deaf ears.
While you were giving the
farewell discourse
And giving up your
spirit,
They busied themselves
analyzing the gender of the angels
No one wiped your bloody
forehead
They all pierced your
side with a spear
And left you in the
battles of Badr and Uhud
To please their foreign
masters
And fill their pockets
with silver,
Price of their treason…
They all betrayed you
with a kiss,
Gave you to the Pharisees
And stood with them in
the court of Caesar
Shouting out: “crucify
him… crucify him…
His blood be upon us and
on our children.. Crucify him.”
They all called for the
release of Barabas,
For the life of Yazeed;
They asked the throne of
Chosroes for help,
The armies of the Tatar,
The soldiers of Hulaga
And accused your own army
of betrayal
Of impotence, of
conspiracy…
Because it asked for your
love… you my country..
How will they escape the
judgment of history,
The hour of truth?
Where will they hide
their faces
On resurrection day?
My country, crucified
On the crossroads of
history
Because your only guilt
was your truthfulness
Because you said openly:
“Only God in my garment”…
“All of you are merchants
In the temple of
nationalism”.
My Lebanon, you struck
them with your voice,
With your whip you lashed
their contaminated throats
You, the believer in the
one God
And they, the worshippers
of idols
And Satan.
They pierced you with the
spear of betrayal
They all pierced you
Even Brutus, along with
them
And they washed their
hands with Pilate
With foreigners and
conspirers
They walked in your
funeral
Carried your casket
And cried crocodile tears
And then..
My country
What is left for us in
this land,
You and I?
I, the ever-straying
And you the stranger in
your own land and nation..
Your sea is not your sea
Nor the cedars your
cedars
Nor the mountains are
yours
Come and sail with me.
No care where,
Nostalgia at home
Is more haunting than
nostalgia in exile.
They do not deserve you
as a country
As long as they are
tribes
Tearing each other
Attacking their own if
they find no other to attack.
They will not wear the
clock of the prophet
As they are happy in
their complete ignorance
And they will not savor
the manna
As long as they still
savor
The bitter dates of
ancient times.
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