بوركت يا ولدي

Blessed Be You, My Son

On the blessed eve of Friday¹, 30 June 1994, I was blessed with the first child of my life. I named him Habib², and that same night this poem was born.

1. Be blessed, my son, O star of all my fortune³!
   And may your Lord, with guidance and with bounty, care for you,
2. and shield you from the envier's eye⁴, from what he says and does,
   and from the nights of black misfortune guard you too.
3. I place you in the refuge of the Most High⁵ from the devils
   that strive to force denial of the faith on you.
4. In His safekeeping may you thrive, and grow, and ever grow,
   and in His shelter, O my newborn, may He watch over you.
5. How great my joy in you, O first of the cluster⁶,
   the fruit of faithfulness, the fruit of love we kept so true!
6. You are the black within my eye, and in my very heart⁷;
   I'd ransom you with all things hidden and all things in view.
7. No, more: you are my world, the world I strive to win,
   and all I wish for in it: master, mastered⁸, both are you.
8. You dawned within my eye and sweetened all my thought,
   until I made you the sunrise⁹ where my poem first broke through.
9. You came forth from my liver¹⁰, as if a piece of it,
   a piece that sleeps upon a newborn's cradle: it is you.
10. O you to whom I sing a melody that will not die,
    so sweet, it echoes the ringing trill¹¹ the women raise in joy!
11. Dancing, I sing, and play its melodies,
    and on my lute, this night of mine, I chant them through.
12. My crooning of my thoughts, my relish in my song:
    may they never roughen¹² the soft bed that cradles you.
13. For it was you who breathed it into me, this splendid song,
    like dew that breathes the fragrance of the roses' bloom.
14. Sleep, little one, beside your mother, for among all women
    she is unique, a peerless match¹³ for one who's peerless too.
15. She dreamt of one like you when she was still a girl,
    shepherding her fancies through her wakeful nights,
16. until there came to her the one to make her dream come true,
    and she found in him the finest lover, and the most beloved too.
17. She was led to him a bride¹⁴, and full of playful charms,
    fair, swaying in her jewels and her striped robes as she moved.
18. She kept her faith with him (and what a faith she kept!),
    and was sincere, as a loyal, loving heart is true.
19. She became his place of rest¹⁵, and he her sanctuary,
    in a great closeness, one that no bounds ever knew.
20. She carried you in weakness upon weakness¹⁶, never once
    complaining to us of the pain her weary womb went through,
21. until, when nine full months had run their course,
    the labour came upon its promised day, the day it fell due.
22. And I stood praying to God outside a room
    where wailing rose, in spite of all the walls, and carried through.
23. I prayed, my eyes all drenched with my own tears:
    “O Lord, make easy the newborn's coming into view!”
24. Then I heard your cry, and it shook my very being
    with joy, a joy as sweet as the singing of the birds.
25. In a single moment I had turned my grief to gladness,
    rejoicing at the auspicious advent that was you.
26. I beamed into the face of Time¹⁷, and Time beamed back at me;
    before, I had looked on nothing but absently.
27. Am I now to be called a parent, and his father?
    Oh, the years, and how they bring us everything that's new!
28. O you who flee so headlong¹⁸, slow down! Our moments
    are only part of the numbered span we're living through.
29. Do not wonder, people, at my joy in him:
    the sweetest grapes are the first⁶ the cluster grew.
30. My dearest wish: I see it here, before us;
    in his soft face, supple as a bough¹⁹, it's shining through.
31. And on the innocence of his eyes I wove it,
    with lashes from the eyelids of a love-struck passion²⁰.
32. I count, for him, the seconds and the minutes,
    and the years, with all their long-familiar weight,
33. to see him fill our house with clamour over toys
    he tosses round in glee when Eid²¹ comes round anew.
34. He cries and laughs, and why, we cannot tell;
    we hush him²², never harshly, never threatening him.
35. And when he smiles, his smiles make music on his lips,
    like a string plucked on the lute.
36. And as time passes he will lisp, and his lisping
    will sound like a warbling songbird's tune.
37. “Baba” and “Mama”: in these two, for him, are gathered
    all the languages there are, in the wonder of saying them anew.
38. Then the schools will throw their doors wide open,
    welcoming the children in like delegations.
39. His steps will hurry towards a school of his own,
    which is to him the whole of the sky and all the open desert.
40. Alif and ba²³: he'll begin with them, delighted,
    repeating them with eager tongue; and he is no dullard.
41. A year will add, and then another after it;
    morning and evening, always, we shall have still more.
42. His birthdays will blow out the candles of his years;
    all I possess, the new-won and the old²⁴, would be his ransom,
43. until we see him grown, a stripling who appears a man,
    full-framed, who breaks through every fetter in the strength of youth,
44. outstripping all his peers upon the field
    of learning and of thought, of making old things new.
45. He'll never heed a passing whim within his mind;
    no, even the smiles of lovely girls will not lead him astray.
46. Eloquent of tongue, and bright of mind,
    he'll offer, on each matter, judgement sound and true.
47. I hope to see him, as the years go by,
    a hero, striving²⁵ in God's cause amid the fluttering banners,
48. and see him peerless in his age for learning,
    no, for his striving, giving all the best that he can do.
49. After he marries, he'll present us with a grandchild,
    and go on gifting us a thousand grandchildren besides.
50. He'll live for the religion of God, and raise its standing high,
    and in this world he'll live the life of a happy man.
51. And when he has fulfilled his vow²⁶, let it be nowhere
    but on the road of martyrdom, a leader of martyrs.
52. O Lord, You are the hope of any father for his child,
    that he may reach the goal his father has in view.
53. Show him to me, my Lord, fulfilling all my hope,
    following my forefathers' road as sandal matches sandal²⁷.

Mombasa, Kenya, 30 June 1994

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.