Yaman

The streets are drowning under tanks that grind,
The guns fall silent, rusting from inside,
The jailer chokes within the cell he sealed,
Yet Fridays rise, the mosques refuse to hide,
And still she stands—Yaman unsealed.

The Sultan wars with soldiers shaped from clay,
His words like dough that swells, then slips away,
He wraps the cause in Uthman’s stained old cloth,
He dies—but Palestine will always stay,
And she stands on—Yaman, the oath.

(SANA) repeats the lie it learned to frame,
The simple circle memory without a name,
The Sultan’s spine begins at last to crack,
The moment that we pull out of the flame,
The spear from flesh—Yaman comes back.

The children’s bodies scatter under fire,
The ropes around the living tighten higher,
Our grief stretches the thread that keeps us here,
Yet still the men refuse the grave’s desire,
And she endures—Yaman, still here.

Oppression kneels upon the chest of breath,
It breaks the land and teaches it of death,
It hunts the free and builds its cross from bone,
Yet Christ returns, unbroken after death,
And so does she—Yaman, not gone.

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This poem is dedicated to Yaman al-Qadri, a Syrian activist and former detainee, who was arrested at the age of eighteen for her participation in peaceful demonstrations and for expressing support for the Syrian uprising. Following her release in November 2011, she left Syria and later settled in Canada, where she has documented testimonies from her time in detention.

The original poem was written in Arabic. The English version presented here is an adaptation developed with the assistance of AI, with the aim of preserving the structure, rhythm, and spirit of the original text while making it accessible to an English-speaking audience.

Image by Dương Nhân

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تغرق بالدّبابات الشّوراعْ.
تهرأ بقذائفها المدافعْ.
يضيق بسجنه السّجّانْ.
و تبقى أيام الجّمعةِ و الجّوامعْ ..
تبقى يمانْ ..

يحارب السّلطان بجنودٍ مِن طينْ.
يفيض بخطابه الكلامُ العجينْ.
تستحيلُ القضيّةُ عنده قميصَ عُثمانْ.
يموتُ السّلطانُ و لا تموتُ فلسطينْ ..
و لا تموتُ يمانْ ..

تتداول (سانا) نظريّة المؤامرةْ.
يحوّمُ البسطاءُ على هوامش الذّاكرةْ.
ينهار جبروتُ السّلطانْ.
عندما نسحب رمحَهُ مِن الخاصرةْ ..
لأجل يمانْ ..

تتساقط بالرّصاص أجسادُ الأطفالْ.
تلتف على رقاب شرفائنا الحبالْ.
تُطيلُ مِن أعمارنا الأحزانْ.
و لا يفنى على أرضنا الرّجالْ ..
و لا تفنى يمانْ ..

يجثمُ الطّغيانُ لا يقبلُ أنْ يزيحْ.
يحوّل البلادَ إلى طيرٍ جريحْ.
يطاردُ الأحرارَ. ينصب الصّلبانْ.
و لكن رغم الصّلبِ يحيى المسيحْ ..
و تحيى يمانْ ..