Until When? And To Where?
Will You Wait for the Fig to Die?
The Machine of Time…
Scattered.
The hands draw closer.
The minutes are searing.
It waits.
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
Irritated lungs,
A fire within,
Sorrow licking at feeling,
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
Madness?
Or music?
Or the blaze of love?
Or nerves whose rope has slipped loose?
There is no painkiller for pain.
The homeland is the homeland.
Killing does not coexist with peace.
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
Dust precedes the footsteps,
Liquid ash
Spilling…
From the eyes.
Bullets in their place,
Inside their barrels,
Explode.
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
The hour has evaporated.
Time has shattered.
No minutes for the minutes.
No voice for the seconds.
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
Concern?
Or indifference?
A rifle?
Or a rope coiled around necks?
And the fig asks:
Until when? And to where?
...
Concern has died
By a sniper’s rifle,
And indifference remains…
Coiling around free necks,
Waiting for the nosebleed,
The body’s final tremor,
To dance with the departing soul
In naivety and malice,
Until the fig no longer returns to ask:
Until when? And to where?
My Arabic version ♡
ٱلة الزمن...
متناثرة
العقارب تقترب
الدقائق حارقة
تنتظر
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
...
رئتان متهيجتان
حريقٌ في الداخل
حزن يلعق الشعور
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
...
جنونٌ؟
أم موسيقى؟
أم لهيب عشق؟
أم أعصاب فالت حبلها؟
لا مسكن للألم
الوطن هو الوطن
لا يعيش القتل مع السلام
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
...
تراب يسبق الخطوات
غبار سائل
ينسكب...
من العيون
رصاصات في مكانها
داخل فوهتها
تنفجر
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
...
الساعة تبخرت
الوقت تحطم
لا دقائق للدقائق
لا صوت للثواني
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
...
اكتراث؟
أم لا مبالاة؟
بندقية؟
أم حبل ملتف حول الأعناق؟
والتين يسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أبن؟
...
مات الاكتراث
ببندقية قنص
وبقيت اللامبالاة...
تلتف حول الأعناق الحرة
تنتظر نزيف الأنف
رعشة الجسد الأخيرة
لترقص مع الروح المغادرة
بسذاجةٍ ولؤم
إلى ألا يعود التين ليسأل
إلى متى؟ وإلى أين؟
Have you figured out who the fig is? Answer me in a comment.
The song Ahmed Kaabour – Onadikom was the companion of my night and my writings.
Anyway…
I am a simple poet from Gaza, weaving pain into poetry, and my voice needs support to reach the world.
I need you to be my voice, to share my words, and to spread my poems, so that others may hear what we live through and feel our pain and dreams through poetry instead of the news.
I can’t activate the paid subscription. If you love my poems, just buy me a coffee.
Shukran for engaging and sharing your thoughts on this poem, and to those who also shared quietly through private messages.. and also for what you are trying to infer… your interpretations are realistic.
I will write responses to your beautiful comments in two days.
A beautiful and very powerful poem with devastatingly vivid imagery… Thank you for sharing it, it is very touching.
I don’t want to risk inadvertently disrespecting the poem or you, the author, by incorrectly guessing what its true meaning is, so I can only give my personal interpretation and how it speaks to me.
To me, the fig in the poem represents conscience and moral accountability in the face of witnessed injustice. As we run out of time, as complete destruction looms, the conscience asks, with every witnessed cycle of violence: how long will we allow this injustice to persist, and where is it leading us?
For me, it is a call to action, a condemnation of apathy and passivity as complicity, because the real horror is not even the violence itself, but the normalization of violence and suffering. What are we left with and what do we turn into when we become accustomed to suffering, when empathy dies, when we choose indifference and comfort and close our eyes in the face of prolonged injustice? What will become of us when the last living thread of our conscience is gone and indifference wins?
It is the last stanza that truly haunts me. “Concern has died/By a sniper’s rifle,/And indifference remains…/Coiling around free necks,/Waiting for the nosebleed,/The body’s final tremor,/To dance with the departing soul/In naivety and malice/Until the fig no longer returns to ask:/Until when? And to where?”… I see it as a final warning of our loss of humanity and our very souls if we silence our conscience and let it die. A complete moral corruption, a death of the soul.