Bitterness By: Zakaria Mohammed Yesterday it rained. At midday I climbed the hill. I picked an olive. I pressed it between my fingers. The oil dripped out like pus. I tasted it. It was bitter as wormwood. I know that two thirds of this bitterness is mine and not the olive’s. My heart is full of bitterness because everything has been ruined. Everything I dreamed of has been trampled by cruelty. There are only a few olives on the branches. They escaped the farmer’s hands. Now it is only me on the hill. Tomorrow it will rain again. The rain will touch the roots of the trees with its silver mouth and cure them. Then the sun will appear, the lizards will climb up and pray calmly on the rocks, and the woodpecker will make a hole in the tough trunk. But the rain will not cure me. My cry will not make a hole in the mute wall around me. * Translated By: Salma Khalidi * Edited by: Henry Bell.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 03:14:34 +0000