Listening to ‘Let Me Tell You What I Saw’
Listening to ‘Let Me Tell You What I Saw’
By John White
For Jenny Lewis & Adnan Al-Sayegh
‘Oh god why didn’t you make the eyes of death more kind when he sees us with our smooth,
white dreams and tender years, having no power and no say in the history of all wars from the
time of blades to the time of bombs – just soldiers; two stupid kings are playing with us on the
nation’s chess board.’
I celebrate the daughter of Welsh miners
and the Iraqi soldier. She searches
for her lost father in the East, he
searches the restless roads of the West
for a way to find his home. They meet
across a sea of words, and searching the stars
for signs to navigate the voyage
they set out in a coracle of hope.
Through patience, mutual understanding,
learning, they proceed, following the glint of words
glimpsed shimmering on the tops of waves,
or caught before they disappear, sullen
with impending despair, beneath a heavy swell.
Soon this haul of words will fill their sails
and now the coracle, with solid hull
has grown into a steamer, and on board
admiring followers from every land applaud
these poems, that emerge singing
from the poets long journey of fear and pain.
So this voyage, which was a simple passage
of words from East to West and West to East,
becomes a way to raise a voice
above the heads of tyrants, to cry out
across the boundaries of many lands
the truth of pain and dislocation, to speak
stubbornly against the grind of history, celebrate
the brave word songs of the human heart.
_________________________
Font size:
Submitted by Hegazyhhh on May 23, 2021
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 21 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XX X XAAB XXXXXXCX DXXXXXXBXDX CXXXXXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,527 |
Words | 279 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 1, 4, 8, 11, 8 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Listening to ‘Let Me Tell You What I Saw’" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/100623/listening-to-‘let-me-tell-you-what-i-saw’>.
Discuss the poem Listening to ‘Let Me Tell You What I Saw’ with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In