Hope is agony,
yet we hope.
..
We hope secretly
while hope publicly mocks us.
..
Even denying hope,
I hope. And I resent it.
..
Hope is the whip of Time
spurring us forward.
..
And I seek to be a sage when young,
to recover youth's paradise when old,
..
to be free by virtue of that illness, love,
and a captive of love when I'm free,
..
to be eloquent when reticent
and reticent when pearls come in my speech.
..
We all sow hope.
And after all our toil, hope is all we reap.
..
Hope is a tightrope
on which we teeter above the sea of life
like acrobats
..
Yet hope nibbles its own cord
as the seconds eat away their thread
Mikhail Nu'aymah
translated by Sharif S. Elmusa with Gregory Orfalea
