"Quartets" by Muhammad Saeed al-'Amoudi

• Is the end truly a return to the past?
• I have misjudged and now I am grieving
• Do we hope that to-morrow we shall reap
• sweet fruit where now we reap our despair?
• Who'll forgive me for being enthralled by
• Enchanting words of eternal love?
• He errs who succumbs to illusions
• And does not heed the lessons of life.
• A world of freedom is a mirage,
• How can the thirsty be satisfied by a mirage?
• The East is a barren space
• How can one take refuge in wasteland
• There's no good in the West, there is
• No good in the East, both are ruined worlds
• The West in its greed is just
• Like the East in its enslavement of people
• Sweet dreams shall with love
• Climb, and not with hatred and misanthropy
• Great is power, if only it could eliminate rancour
• and those who grudge.
• Knowledge is fantastic, it disseminates
• Wisdom, not frivolous thought.
• Sweet are dreams and genuine, if only they
• Where not illusions for the dreamers.
• /translated by Bassam al-Hilu and Alan Brownjohn