في انتظارك

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَنَا فِي انْتِظَارِكِ بِاصْطِبَارٍ مُوهِنِبَلْ أَنْتِ أَقْرَبُ مِنْ وَرِيدِي الْمُثْخَنِ
لَا أَنْتِ لِي كَيْ يَطْمَئِنَّ وَيَكْتَفِيقَلْبِي وَيَهْنَأَ مِنْكِ بِالْعَيْشِ الْهَنِي
بَلْ لَا لِغَيْرِي كَيْ أَقُولَ لِمُهْجَتِيصَبْرًا تَسَلَّيْ قَبْلَ أَنْ تَتَجَنَّنِي
أَنَا لَسْتُ مَحْرُومًا لِأَنْسَى حُبَّكُمْلَكِنْ أُمَنَّى بِاللِّقَاءِ فَأَغْتَنِي
أَنْتِ الْقَرِيبَةُ تَهْمِسِينَ لِمَسْمَعِيفَأَرَاكِ فِي نَفْسِي كَأَنَّكِ مَوْطِنِي
أَنْتِ الْبَعِيدَةُ كَالْمُنَى فِي خَاطِرِيتَبْدُو لِقَلْبِي إِنَّمَا لَا أَجْتَنِي
قَلَقٌ عَلَى قَلَقٍ وَبَهْجَةُ مُهْجَةٍآمَالُ مُنْتَظِرٍ وَقُرْبُ تَجَنُّنِ

Waiting for You

  1. I wait for you with a patience that wears me down,
    and yet you are nearer than my wounded jugular vein1.
  2. You are not mine, so that my heart could rest content
    and taste with you a pleasant life, of the sweetest kind;
  3. nor are you another's, so that I might tell my heart:
    “Be patient, take comfort, before you lose your mind.”
  4. I am not so deprived that I should forget your love;
    rather, I am fed on hopes of meeting, and so grow rich.
  5. You are the near one, whispering in my ear,
    and I see you within myself as if you were my homeland.
  6. You are the far one, like a wish within my thoughts:
    you show yourself to my heart, and yet I cannot pluck you2.
  7. Anxiety upon anxiety, and a heart's delight;
    a waiting man's hopes, and the verge of losing my mind3.

Notes

  1. ‘Nearer than the jugular vein’ echoes Qurʾan 50:16, where God says of man, ‘We are nearer to him than his jugular vein’. The poet adds muthkhan, ‘badly wounded’: the vein that holds her so close is itself bleeding from the wait. ↩
  2. Ajtanī is to pick fruit from the tree. The beloved hangs within sight, like fruit on a branch, but out of reach. Verses 5 and 6 are set against each other (muqābala): ‘you are the near one… you are the far one’. ↩
  3. The closing verse gathers the poem’s contradictions into a list without verbs: dread and joy, hope and madness, side by side. The last word, tajannun (madness), returns to the heart’s fear of going mad in verse 3. ↩

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