There was a time when I in ignorance
Did contemplate the status of my peers
Oft with a feeling of incompetence
Or else with envy or in yellow tears.
So that wherev’r I’d go, I would behold
Outstanding men of power and estate
Then would my sorrows grow a thousandfold
Seeing their wealth and my penurious state.
But when I swapped my yen with holy phlegm
And probed my bankrupt spirit once again
I found in it my bliss, my diadem
The destitution of my fellowmen.
'Twas then the resurrection of my soul
Which, having nihil, waxed possessing all!
Beirut
April 26th 1988
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
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