Mohammed Omar Othman (1957-), 'Fog and Haze'

(translated from the Kurdish by Muhammed Chawsawa)

I am the shout of a million trees,
Facing the tempest, limbless and fallen.
I am the wailing of a million birds,
Nests collapsed and homeless.

From the window of an endless autumn,
I gaze out at the world in fog, 
The blood of shed leaves.
I gaze into the darkened lamps of houses.

--

I am an Ismail now, not the knife of Ibrahim the father but
The knife of homesickness, that monster, beheads me.
Which of the angels will intervene before my death and beheading?
Which of the angels will give an animal, a scapegoat, to this homesickness?