Father to Daughter translated into Arabic

منْ أبٍ إلى ابنتهِ 

Click on the image to read the poem!

How beautiful is that?          My poem....   

 'Father to Daughter' in Arabic script above

Thanks to Dr. Salwa Goda, Egyptian academic, poet and translator.

Thank you to Mark Ulyseas for facilitating the meeting of minds that allow us to meet across the sands.

Thanks also to Chris Murray for first publishing the original version in English on her Poethead website.

Thanks to Paul Casey at ÓBheál, Cork for hosting poet's from across the globe which enabled me to meet poet's such as Rafiq Kathwari.

The full poem in Arabic along with an article by Dr. Salwa Goda was published today Wednesday 22nd Nov 2023 in the Jordanian magazine Thaqafat.

It took more than 30 years after I had returned from a two year stay in Iraq to write this poem. Sometimes it takes something outside of ourselves to trigger us to write. In this case it was a post on Facebook by Rafiq Kathwari about the possibility of Tony Blair being brought to court for war crimes that brought me back to my time in Baghdad and this poem emerged. I loved everything about Iraq, about Baghdad, about the people. I visited as far north as Zakkho and south to Basra and most places in between. I 'grew up' there. It entered my blood and still keeps my heart beating.

My dad was a reader. He didn't own many books but still somehow managed to read voraciously and passed on this love to me.

I am now older than my dad was when he asked me 'Do you realise there is a war going on?' I didn't although I didn't say so.

The tide has come in and gone out many days since then. I am slowly coming to the realisation that the more I know the less I know. I know that no religion has the answer because there is no answer. We each have to find our own way. As we come into this world alone so we leave it.