The Big Picture
              The Small Mirror
Translated by: Dr. Sharef Fayez

My mother was from the green salvation tribe
She spoke the language of the people of paradise   
She put on a silk chador of faith
Her heart was like God’s empyrean
majestic as His truth
And no one knew that I heard God’s voice
in the beatings of her heart     
And no one knew that God was in our house
And that the sun rose when she began to talk  

My mother was from the green salvation tribe
She put on a silk chador of faith
When my mother walked to me
on each of her small footprint a small window would open
into which I could see the green gardens of paradise and
pick my fortune fruit from the top branch of an apple tree

My mother was from the green salvation tribe
She put on a silk chador of faith
Her forehead resembled God’s loveliest song’s exordium
which I droned everyday in a lyrical tone
and then knew what a God’s poem meant

My mother was from the green salvation tribe
She spoke the language of the people of paradise 
And waited for a white pigeon to come and wash
its lovely feathers every morning
in the paradise’s most crystal springs
And the white pigeon read His message to my mother
from a sacred sphere of the Koran

My mother was from the green salvation tribe
She has such an extended family history
that only the sun can remember it
And the sun told me that when she was born
her father lighted a candle in a leprosy home
to mourn the decline of his tall, straight figure
And the sun told me that my mother with her sacred thumb
turned the pages of her life book
to search the meaning of the word “smile”
Unfortunately she couldn’t memorize the happy meaning
of smile until the last moments of her life
My mother was familiar with crying and could derive
a thousand derivates from “crying”
My mother in a thousand languages had kept the bitter meaning
of crying in the dark memory of her eyes
And my mother’s eyes -- mirrors of God’s manifestation --
had an excellent memory

My mother was a stranger to the spring;
her life was like a trail of ants
that passed from the grand rock of misfortune
stricken every season by dark clouds of malice and insult
And everyday my mother would pick up from there  
bundles and bundles of flowers of misfortune
My mother was patient as a stone
When my father sailed his small emotion boat
on the red shore of fury
my mother would seek refuge on the beach of tolerance
and wipe her tears with the corners of her chador
and united with God

My father was a strange man
When my father tied his turban of pride around his head
he thought the sun was a white pigeon
which flew off his high shoulders
And he thought he could ration the sunlight for my mother
And he thought the moon was a colorful worry bead  
that he could hang from his horse’ high mane
My father was a strange man
When he called me before him
I felt a disaster was looming a few steps from him
And my words were like frightened sparrows
which left my mouth’s autumn-stricken orchards
And fear was a dirty shirt, which disfigured my real complexion        
When my father called me before him
my speech blood ceased to flow
in the red vessels of my tongue
And at that time my mother’s heart was a bright crystal
flashing freely in the depth of the darkness valley
And my mother watched her destruction in the broken mirrors
of perturbation and waited for an event to occur  

My father was a strange man
When he tied his turban of pride around his head
his small empire would appear before him
within the four walls of our house
And then he would lash freedom, which was me
and life, which was my mother,
and shackled both of us

May her soul rest in peace!
She still thanked God and prayed for my father:
May God keep his shadow over our heads!

Peshawar, July 2002