Strangers

Strangers

Nazik Al-Malaikah

By: Nazik Al-Malaikah

Translated by: Adib S. Kawar

Blow out the candle and leave us strangers here
We are two parts of the night, so what is the meaning of light?
Light falls on two fancies under the eyelids of the evening
Light falls on some shrapnels of hope
I was called we and I call myself I:
Hot ashes. We are here like light
Strangers…

The pale cold gathering is like a cold day
It was a murder for my anthems and a grave for my feelings
The clock rang in the darkness nine and then ten
And I with my pain hear and count. I was puzzled
Asking the clock what is the meaning of my happiness
If we spend the evenings, you know better…
Strangers...

Hours passed like in the past covered with withering
Like the unknown tomorrow, I don’t know is it dawn or dusk?
The hours passed and silence is like winter weather
Don’t you see? Our eyes are withering and cold
As if it is strangling me and oppressing my blood
As if uttering in me and saying
You two are under the storms of the evening
Strangers...

Blow out the candle, the two souls are in a thick night
Light falls on two faces colored like autumn
Don’t you see? Our eyes are withering and coldness
Don’t you hear? Our hearts are extension and extinguishing
Our silence is the echo of a frightening warning
Sarcastic from that we will return
Strangers…

We who brought us today? From where did we start?
Yesterday didn’t know we are comrades… Let us
Expel the memory as if it had never been from our youth
Some rash love passed by and forgot us
Oh… Wish we return where we where
Before we vanish and we are still

Strangers
(1948)