From Exile to Exile by Yemeni Poet Abd Allah Al Baraduni

From Exile To Exile

My country is handed over from one tyrant
to the next, a worse tyrant;
from one prison to another,
from one exile to another.
It is colonized by the observed
invader and the hidden one;
handed over by one beast to two
like an emaciated camel.

In the caverns of its death
my country neither dies
nor recovers. It digs
in the muted graves looking
for its pure origins
for its springtime promise
that slept behind its eyes
for the dream that will come
for the phantom that hid.
it moves from one overwhelming
night to a darker night.

My country grieves
in its own boundaries
and in other people's land
and even on its own soil
suffers the alienation
of exile.

Translated by Diana Der Hovanessian with Sharif Elmusa