My Mother's Voice Poem by Istabraq Al Ahmadi

When the voice of my mother the dawn breathes,
ropes of bright butterflies the sky wears.
When the notes of her voice flows, the white seagulls
Fly in circle like a necklace around the sun,
And the dawn drinks the wine of the dew.
When the bugle of spring her voice blows
all the blessings of God's open hand it brings.
When a lullaby at my bed my mother sings
All the stars melt with each other
And dance beyond the loitering and heavy clouds
Which move their waists east and west,
Like an Arab belly dancer, so that their ecstasy,
Like the rain, a drop by drop falls
To wash the wretched face of the earth,
To remove the misery of the rivers and trees
And the fearful footfalls upon lonely lanes.
It is her voice that teaches the flowers
How to fill their cups with nectar and love.
It is her voice which the bees does lead
From faraway places, from distant caves,
Form under thick layers of leaves to the nectar.
To the heart of the bees my mother whispers
And they shudder when a child tastes their honey.
When at midnight my mother sighs and weeps
Of my yesterday's pain or tomorrow's tears
The moon falls in her celestial lap to hear
her breaths like a child spellbound
And leaves all the love stories behind
As if it longs for a love mixed with pain.
My mother's voice tells the earth
That the horizon between the graveyards
And the setting sun is nothing but the distance
between morn and noon when a child
stretches both hands to catch the moon.
It is because of my mother's voice that love
Is counted by the sand grains and
the drops of the oceans,
That the wrathful sea becomes kind and calm,
That that dark rocky ball which is called the moon
Weaves bright threads from the white plait of the sun
To make crowns for the girls who act like princesses.
It is because of my mother's voice that the nightingales
Their chests and wings to the wind spread
And sing full-throat notes that fall
Like gentle kisses on a beloved's eyes
To fill the spaces between the trees and the clouds.
It is because of my mother's voice that the hoopoes
Over their eggs and over cold their feathers spread
Like when the night over the sky scatters
Stars for the lovers to count their dreams.
It is because of my mother's voice that the gurgling water
In narrow corridors, in the fields, under the shade
Of the palm trees and the vine trees
Brings back to me the giggling of my childhood days
Which the straying wind with an empty echo carried.