The As-Suwayda branch of the Arab Writers Union held a poetry festival to mark the 78th anniversary of Evacuation Day and World Poetry Day. The event featured poets Farhan Al-Khatib, Fayez Ezzedine, Ismail Rakab, Wael Abu Yazbek, Suhail Abu Fakhr, Rifat Badran, Majda Abu Shahin, Bashar Arij, and Amjad Zahreddine.
Poet Al-Khatib opened the festival with remarks praising the meeting of free, poetic words with the battles waged by our fathers and forefathers to achieve the Great Evacuation—the evacuation of the last French soldier from the land of beloved Syria on April 17, 1946. He spoke of how their victorious battles against the occupation were accompanied by the grand poems of great Arab and Syrian poets such as Ahmed Shawqi, Hafez Ibrahim, Marouf Al-Rusafi, Khair Al-Din Al-Zirikli, Muhammad Al-Bazm, and Rashid Salim Al-Khoury.
Al-Khatib then recited his poem, in which he addressed the fighter Sultan Pasha Al-Atrash, saying:
I reached out my hand to you, O Sultan,
Stained with arrays of wounds,
And I came to you with a heart in my palm,
Flying to you with a broken wing,
And I came to you as a field of blood,
That martyrdom blossoms like anemones,
And I came to you, so wipe my tears,
And hang them on the trees of the morning.
In turn, poet Fayez Ezzedine recited a poem inspired by the occasion, in which he said:
Yours is our basalt rock, O mountain of battle,
The winds raged, yet you feared no winds,
And Mazraat al-Ibaa remains through time,
A flowing event and a brilliant witness.
Then Ismail Rakab recited some of his poems, dedicating one to Damascus, in which he said:
This is Damascus, have you not seen its loftiness?
Victory blooms, and the horizon is radiant,
And people, all the people, are in a wedding,
With an encompassing joy and harmony.
Poet Rifat Badran dedicated a free-verse poem to his city, As-Suwayda, recalling its history, praising its beauty, and mentioning the conviviality of its gatherings, in which he said:
In the shadows of As-Suwayda,
A flute harmonizing with the wind,
A breath of a wounded reed pipe,
And a pipe made of reeds,
The glimmer of lapis lazuli saddles,
Dancing to a specter of Nahawand,
To the beat of the pulse of blood,
And the echo of the singing of Arab horses.
Following him, poet Suhail Abu Fakhr recited two sentimental poems concerning personal worries that intersect with societal concerns, chanting:
The highwaymen in their finery,
Stood while the body suffered from a tumor,
Like a leafy fig tree,
With neither fruit nor value,
They worshipped money and were deceived,
That the devil was their idol.
Meanwhile, poet Majda Abu Shahin shone with two sentimental, lyrical poems overflowing with feelings of love and passion for the honest and graceful poetic word. We excerpt from her poem "The Flute":
A flute that, if it calls my cloud, I will pour forth,
In its forest, jinn and humans take shade,
I fold toward it the faces of those who dream of what,
Saves one from the abyss, or lures one to travel,
And its work, in the mirrors of the soul, is its shine,
It clarifies it with the silver of speech, so it hides.
Then poet Bashar Arij recited various poems ranging from the sentimental to the social. In one, he said:
By God, tell me how can we disagree?
Between us is familiarity and unity,
If you have denied it forever,
Here I am confessing my love,
I pledged you to the Most Merciful, I am not,
Standing on anything other than what passion willed,
If there were a second pulse in you,
My pulse would snatch the echo of the sighs.
Poet Amjad Zahreddine also recited various poems, predominantly sentimental in nature, carried by vivid poetic imagery and beautiful verbal weaving. Among his finest was:
In your blonde hair like wheat ears,
The gloom of the sun appears at sunset,
Flowers resonate with perfumes,
And trees and streams are delighted,
In your blonde hair like wheat ears.
Poet Wael Abu Yazbek also recited a sentimental poem, saying:
O you ugly time, do you not see,
That I have hoped for my salvation from life?
Here I am, adorned with death, not,
Wary of the arrows that deflect from my side,
I am still lighting a star every night,
So that I may light the dreams in the darkness.
The festival was concluded by poet Farhan Al-Khatib, who presented it and participated in it with verses honoring both occasions, praising the poetry that has accompanied feats of heroism and sacrifice throughout history to defend the homeland, describing poetry with beautiful phrases within his poem "The Companion of Ascent":
Poetry has no home but my own self,
In it, it rises to the heights of virtues,
I pick poetry from the madness of my winds,
And protect it from the dizziness of the directions,
Here is poetry, a star in imagination,
And mirrors whispering to the charming ones.
