I AM FROM THE EAST
I am an Easterner, I love the sun
but there was no new day in my life.
I believed in science, and said
as long as it’s dark and night in the East
this means the sun is shining in the West.
I came here to America
to see the sun, speak to it,
beg it at dawn to come back with me
to end the darkness in my country.
Ah! woe to my poem
I did not see anything but pure darkness.
I was astonished.
Oh, my God,
how can this be?
Where is the sun?
Without its light,
how can we live?
how can we see?
2007 by Yassin Aref