Translated from the Arabic by Sharif Elmusa and Naomi Shihab Nye
The Aqsa Mosque
Honorable Prince!* Before you stands a poet
whose heart harbors bitter complaint.
Have you come to visit the Aqsa mosque!†
or to bid it farewell before its loss?
This land, this holy land, is being sold to all intruders
and stabbed by its own people!
And tomorrow looms over us, nearer and nearer!
Nothing shall remain for us but our streaming tears,
our deep regrets!
Oh, Prince, shout, shout! Your voice
might shake people awake!
Ask the guards of the Aqsa: are they all agreed to struggle
as one body and mind?
Ask the guards of the Aqsa: can a covenant with God
be offered to someone, then lost?
Forgive the complaint, but a grieving heart needs to complain
to the Prince, even if it makes him weep.