“River of Songs,” poem from “Bare Soul,” the winner of the 2017 “Naji Naaman Poetry Prize for Creativity,” translated into Arabic by the Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail, the recipient of the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture and UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing, published in the latest print edition of “Acculturation” magazine from the United Kingdom. “River of Songs” poem and poetry film have been archived by Lunar Codex to launch on the moon on two separate NASA missions in 2022 and 2023. https://lnkd.in/gaBBukeS
RIVER OF SONGS
I
I opened my eyes
to find poetry before me.
I turned my back on it to face reality.
Ever since, I am transformed into a river of songs.
II
A river takes all
good or bad.
The heart of a river
does not discriminate.
Everything becomes pure
as the river flows…
III
Who claims to know
what the river is all about?
Those who came in their boats of pride,
could barely make it to the shore.
Those who came without any prejudice,
could never surface to tell its depth.
Who claims to know the river?
Not the river itself…
IV
Truth is not always what is said,
truth is not always what is heard,
sometimes, the truth exists somewhere in the middle
and flows with the course of life like a Silent River,
committed to the world on both its sides,
searching for its way to the ocean.
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