Three Poems

Jean Amrouche

Poem 1
If the dowry had not been so heavy
No one could have taken her from me,
My slender one.

Blear-eyed
Her aged husband does not see
Beauty swaying like a palm…

Heart, my heart,
Learn patience.

If my oldest brother did not rule over us
My beloved would be mine.

Pockets empty
For her I would have sold
All my lands.

The day that man led her away
I can still see it— 

O my brothers
I did what you wanted
Who will comfort me now?

Poem 2
So lightly
I married
O mother
What ruin

So naïve
I believed him
Vultures feast
On my future

Two years
Each day torture
Throat choked
With my suffering

To clear it
Are only
These songs

Poem 3
Take up prayer beads O soul
Calm yourself
Cease your reaping 

Inside each young girl
Lava stirs
Then: volcano

Every man is a serf
Woman, root of perdition:

She who
Scythes down his harvest
Too soon

Translated by Laura Sheahen