Ounsi el-Hajj

Ounsi el-Hajj (27 July 1937 - 18 February 2014) was a Lebanese poet, journalist, and translator.

Quotes

Poetry

Rendezvous

• A group of women around a shattered man.
  I said with a smile: Let's call him Qais, Laila's mad lover.
  The termperature sank abruptly.
  Never in my life did I see eyes like those with trailing dresses.
  The moment I left him they had, of course, to come after me.
  And there they waited for me, one after the other.
  I was in a rural city, a strange place on the banks of a river.
  And even without my smiling, the shattered man had tired me.
  It was in the old house that our meeting took place, and my jokes turned into blood.
  I killed them with classic boredom.
  • An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry, p. 75

A Cup

• I shall not stop,
  I shall not stop
  Beneath the moon clothed in white,
  Drowning in the morrow
  With a fast-beating heart.
  You remain mine, when I am aware,
  You remain mine, when I am unaware.
  There, in the dome of mist,
  In the wells of spacious churches,
  In festivals
  And the glimmering of windows,
  The fields of folk-song,
  The desperate hum of din,
  The departure of ships and wine,
  You remain mine.
  The shriveled and the fresh stop short,
  And the earth stretches forth its head
  And pursues us from word to word,
  From bird
  To bird
  I heard from afar,
  And when I tried to approach,
  You held up your hand.
  I heard from afar
  And saw the ancient peoples
  There, beyond the woods.
  • An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry, p. 73

External links

• An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry, edited by Mounah A. Khouri, Mounah Abdallah Khouri, Hamid Algar. University of California Press, London, England, 1974