One of the Arab World’s most important modern poets is the Yemeni ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Maqalih. Dr. al-Maqâlih received his Ph.D. from ‘Ayn Shams University in 1977. He was President of Sanaa University from 1982-2001. He has received the title of “Knight of the First Rank in Arts and Letters” in 2003 from the government of France. The poem (translated here by Bob Holman and Sam Liebhaber) was written during the 70 day siege of Sanaa in 1968 when the poet was 31 years old. Sanaa is the capital of the modern Yemeni nation state, as it was for the Zaydi imamate when Dr. al-Maqalih was born.

The 26th Qasida
By ‘Abd al ‘Aziz al-Maqalih

Where are the gardens of Sanaa?
Dusty souqs have killed them,
covered them with corruption.
Nothing remains of their walls,
no one marched in their funeral.

No one cried.
But her sparrows perch in the unwithered memory
of her trees –
they will not be cast from this qasidah!
Gardens are traced in the twists
of the lovelorn houses
and all it takes to nourish them
is due on window sills.
They will not decay,
oblivion will not befall them.
(Warm rocks,
warm bricks,
warm eyes,
warm gardens in the hearts
of her people,
warm blossoms
scatted in their smiles.
Her fruits are delicious love
and her boughs are freedom.
The Garden of Peacocks is slowly vanishing!
The Garden of Almonds is inexorably shrinking
and the Garden of the Sultan is gone, gone, gone!
Back-hoes besiege the Garden of Fools,
but the dust dealers
cannot mortgage the verdure
of the Earth,
just as you cannot foreclose on the stars.)

[Translated from the Arabic by Bob Holman and Sam Liebhaber, from The Book of Sana’a: Poetry of ‘Abd al-‘Azîz al-Maqâlih (Sanaa: American Institute for Yemeni Studies, 2004), p. 139.]