Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world and wreaked havoc around the world, we resigned to our homes in fear and altered our normal way of life in a way the world has probably never seen in modern history. As we sit safely at home, we think of those thousands of innocent souls who lost their lives and also those brave men and women, especially the medical teams, who leave the safety of their homes and the warmth of their families to save millions of others. As the coronavirus storm continues unabated, poets try in their own way to record this pivotal moment of history.
This poem pays homage to the thousands who died, and is a tribute to the doctors and nurses who work tirelessly to fight the disease.
Here are the excerpts:
She is the old earth
Tumbling down on a slope like a jar of clay
And soon she will hit the emerging rock
However, we will not die
We move apart but we do not separate
We cry when lovers leave, goodbye
We become happy, our children are coming
They are born bald like small moons
Lighting up the sadness of this planet
Goodbye…
Death wore the sprinter's shoes
And started running faster than our dreams
But he is not as strong as us in holding a long breath
Then, fear arrived
Hidden in the dark cloud’s saliva
But its black rain mixed with the tears of all nurses
The souls that rose up to the sky,
We saw them as kites that were let go by the hands of their holders
And here we are, waving to them behind closed windows
Leave in peace. We soon will be in peace
Look
In this war,
The doctor is the general with a white military uniform
With his gun as the syringe
Empty streets are formula racetracks for ambulances
Tanks fire bombs of chlorine on closed stores
And we
Like sunflowers
Enter the seclusion of the night at 8pm
In it, we repeat our tormented question
“What is happening?”
She is the old earth
Tumbling down a slope like a crystal ball
And soon, she will hit the rock
For the first time,
Hospitals are airports to the after life
Supermarkets represent hunger
No birthday celebrations in the limos
No group prayers
It’s like the person has to face God alone
It’s like warming up for the upcoming last day
People singing on balconies: glory to life
Pilots get to know the land again
Love stories born in isolated wards. Stories of betrayal too.
Mass burials and cremations of corpses wrapped in plastic
What is happening?
Is the old earth shaking off her worn out dress?
Are the trees taking her to the river of the beginning,
To be pregnant with the truth
And feed the pens with her ink through her sagging breasts?
Or is it the dealers who ignite a fire in the forest
And sleep ignorant of her sparks?
For the first time,
Pull your hand away from mine, to unite
Cover your face. You are only real with a mask
And you my love,
Extend your gloved hand
I will place the ring of love on its finger
The police are busy washing the city with soap
Thieves are trapped in the idea of repent
And you my love is asking:
Why didn’t the weather lady predict this empty storm?
And I answered: yes
Yes, we separated religion from politics
And now, we must separate science from politics
And tomorrow,
We must separate fire from politics
For the sake of this old earth
The earth that waited a billion years in her white dress
But the wedding hasn’t happened yet
The earth, every time she went to the toilet,
A civilisation fell and another rose
And the weak people
Eaters of deer, pigeons, locusts and dogs
Even if they listened to this wise lesson,
They wouldn’t comprehend it
In the end, their fate is to eat one another
***
In a stylish suit, I greeted year 2020
Impressed by its numerical shape
That appear as two swans swimming peacefully in the lake of time
Yet, when I jumped on its fast train — it stopped
Then,
Wings of planes became paralysed
Illusory deaths of imagined cinematic heroes
A mass escape of English Premier League players
And nobody wanted their jerseys thrown on the ground
In Greece,
A woman gives birth to a dead boy on Socrates grave
In red China,
A farmer opens Confucian’s cemetery, leaving it for the bats to swarm in
And everyone in America is left holding a rifle
It is the season of hunting mirrors
It is the emptiness inside you meeting the emptiness outside you
And they get to know each other muzzle to muzzle
And you, my love
Climb over the wall of fear. You will find me waiting
And you, my old grandfather
Cough as you were coughing everyday
The rhythm of your damaged lungs is a euphoria for me
Nothing is left but our shadows
And the faces of friends — we talk to their pictures
It is a holiday for our senses, spending it on phone screens
It is the old earth
Bored of sitting on her rotten egg
Her egg that scientists thought was a white blood cell
Her egg that war generals thought was a red blood cell
So they fought
And we fell victim to this colour blindness
We can’t distinguish businessmen from fishermen
Nor the female teachers from sellers of pirated watches
Prisons opened as houses imprisoned their owners
Schools closed
And its guards returned to their villages
We then saw the medicine
Which usually is a rich man
Showing us the empty pockets of his silk pants
So, which lie should we believe?
The mouth of the news presenter or her silicone chest?
The presidents of first-world countries or our mothers?
Everyone is talking about a deadly virus
About the cosmic tampering and its spread
About the late adolescence of the angel of death
Many numbers died
That is what is said in the daily pandemic meter
Italy cried and Casanova disappeared from its streets
It is like destiny
Is playing chess against wind to defeat water
It is like forgotten history found its lost shoes
And decided to walk towards us
Us, the sitters
In the peace of civilisation
Clappers of the eternity circus
We were afraid of the mountain sneezing its lava
We became fearful of the monkeys drool in the laboratory
Me. Still an ATM card in the doctor's eyes
Still a guilty case in the lawyer’s mind
I receive life insurance offers more than my car
So, how will they let me die with the dust of an atom?
Who will be there to attend the earth’s wedding after me?
The earth
The helium balloon which escaped from its child’s hands
The earth
A green watermelon in the hands of a unprofessional basketball player
Everybody is waiting for him to shoot it
In the black hole of our existence
***
It is the year of corona
No movement appears on the surveillance cameras watching the world
Angels have gathered on the rooftops of buildings with no work to do
School buses abandoned in junkyards
Occupied by monkeys from forests
We do not see death
But we hear its voice loudly in this silence
Poets search for the truth in their empty drawers
My mother says: have honey and lemon,
I cannot handle seeing you infected like the queen of Britain
My friend Julio from Madrid lost his three aunts
We heard a sad thunder from the sky over Europe
Cloud after cloud
The artist painted the sky with wings of crows
Tear after tear
The DJ mixed a messy melody and called it: “The shriek of hope”
Here is humanity laughing at its sorrow
Here are racehorses from east and west
Clashing on the line of the equator
And the people. For the first time,
Realised that a draw is a win for everyone
Corona said: look deeply inside the emptiness, you will see me
Once as a glass barrier between yourself and the rest of the world
And once as a form of your fear of nothing
If you sit alone,
Take off your black and white glasses
Stretch your neck out the window and yell: enough
The old earth is choking on its muzzle
The branches of trees cannot wear gloves forever
The bird of freedom left its nest, searching for a cage
Now
They say Germany is sick by weakness!
And its dental clinics treat bites of regret
Now
Poets in New York are donating their poems
To be burnt as coal
For trains carrying dead bodies
It is the year of corona
Storms of dust pollinating seeds of death
The cough of the world. It now has asthma
Let us hope and wait my love
The Divine, how will he respond to the prayers for him?
Patience, is it better than antidepressant pills?
Forgetfulness, will it wash our streets tomorrow?
Or is it just the old earth
Getting her cosmic period
Changing her blood, feathers, skin and people
While she is tumbling in the space of eternity
Kicked around on the open playground of the universe?
— Translated by Muna Alkhezam
Adel Khozam is an Emirati poet, writer, journalist, and broadcaster
