Hamra Night by Sa’di Yusuf

A candle in a long street A candle in the sleep of houses A candle for frightened shops A candle for bakeries A candle for a journalist trembling in an empty office A candle for a fighter A candle for a woman doctor watching over patients A candle for the wounded A candle for plain talk A candle for the stairs A candle for a hotel packed with refugees A candle for a singer A candle for broadcasters in their hideouts A candle for a bottle of water A candle for the air A candle for two lovers in a naked flat A candle for the falling sky A candle for the beginning A candle for the ending A candle for the last communique A candle for my conscience A candle in my hands Hamra is a fashionable district in Beirut. Sa’di Yusuf, born in Iraq in 1934 and now living in Cyprus, was in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982. “Hamra Night” is taken from “Modern Poetry of the Arab World” (Penguin: $5.95; 154 pp.), an anthology translated and edited by Abdullah al-Udhari. (Abdullah al-Udhari, 1986, by permission.)