‘Not Just Passing’: A Poem by Hiba Abu Nada

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator. Her novel الأكسجين ليس للموتى  (Oxygen is Not for the Dead) won second place in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She was killed in her home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike on October 20, 2023. She was 32.

Not Just Passing

Hiba Abu Nada

Translated by Huda Fakhreddine

 

Yesterday, a star said

 to the little light in my heart,

We are not just transients

passing.

 

Do not die. Beneath this glow

some wanderers go on

walking.

 

You were first created out of love,

 so carry nothing but love

 to those who are trembling.

 

One day, all gardens sprouted

from our names, from what remained

of hearts yearning.

 

And since it came of age, this ancient language

has taught us how to heal others

with our longing,

 

how to be a heavenly scent

to relax their tightening lungs: a welcome sigh,

 a gasp of oxygen.

 

Softly, we pass over wounds,

like purposeful gauze, a hint of relief,

an aspirin.

 

O little light in me, don’t die,

even if all the galaxies of the world

close in.

 

O little light in me, say:

Enter my heart in peace.

 All of you, come in!

Hiba Abu Nada was a poet, novelist, and educator. You can also read her poem “Refuge” at Protean in Huda Fakhreddine’s translation.

Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer, a translator, and the author of several scholarly books.