Winter's sharp blade cut into the platform,
The storm miaowed like A cat,
...
Buland Al-Haidari (1926–1996) — born to a prominent Kurdish family in northern Iraq — grew up in the streets of Baghdad — reprieved minutes before a death sentence was to be carried out — lived and died in exile… a fascinating story, all the more so because of his importance as a leading modernizer of the Arabic literary tradition. Along with a small group of Iraqi poets, he began writing in free verse and treating personal and everyday life as worthy of a poet’s attention. This is the brilliance of Al-Hairdari’s poetry. He expresses the effect of political violence and the sorrow of living in exile with such intimacy, using the mundane details of life. His first collection, ''Beating of Clay'' (1946), was regarded by critics as a revolution in both shape and content. His most recent collection, ''Passages to Exile''(1996) was published in London. He had lived in London since 1982 and was literary critic for an Arabic weekly newspaper. His final collection of poems, Passages to Exile ends,)
Old Age
Another winter,
And here am I,
By the side of the stove,
that a woman might dream of me,
That I might bury in her breast
A secret she would not mock;
Dreaming that in my fading years
I might spring forth as light,
And she would say:
This light is mine;
Let no woman draw near it.
Here,
By the side of the stove,
Another winter,
And here Am I,
Spinning my dreams and fearing them,
Afraid her eyes would mock
My bald, idiotic head,
My greying, aged soul,
Afraid her feet would kick
My love,
And here, by the side of the stove,
I would be lightly mocked by a woman.
Alone,
Without love, or dreams, or a woman,
And tomorrow I shall die of the cold within,
Here, by the side of the stove