We are all strangers - Poem

Anwar… Anwar… Anwar…
This is the final farewell,
The last echo of your name as you prepare to depart.
In but a few days, you shall leave us.

Why did you forsake your homeland?
Was it not to feed the hungry mouths of your kin,
To shelter your mother, to comfort your father?
But now, tell me, when you return,
How will you ease their hunger?
What will the children break their fast upon?
Who will buy their pencils to write their dreams?

And she, the one who waited for you,
Fifteen years and more—
Will she know you still,
Or has time, that cunning thief,
Turned you both into strangers?

You came to us a stranger,
And you leave to your own as one.
Is estrangement the fate you are bound to?
And do we not ache for you, too?
Or is longing a feeble thing,
And tears a shattering of pride?

I shall not see you again, Anwar.
But when you stand once more upon Bengal’s soil,
Tell them this:
You wept when I left you behind,
And yesterday, Hussein wept as I bid him goodbye.
Are these tears the same?
Or does a mother’s sorrow rise deeper,
From the unlit caverns of the soul?

How fares your mother now?
Does her heart yet hold the strength to weep?
Do her eyes still see the light,
Or has grief robbed her sight,
Left her blind to the world’s colors?

Return, Anwar, and speak to Bengal.
Say to them:
We are all strangers,
Estranged from our homelands,
Estranged within them.

The exile may return, alive or in death’s embrace,
But what of those estranged in their own homes?
How do they find their way back?
How do they return?
How?
How?

Poem in Arabic by Hussain Ibn Ahmed 2019. Translation to English, and Image generated by AI Chat GPT partially, and partially by Hussain Ibn Ahmed.