Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
Taghreed, you have ever remained,
a source of inspiration to my eyes,
a light that slips between the eyelids of verse.
You are the hymn when the heart weeps,
the glad tidings when life feels narrow.
Each time the night calls with its heavy cloak,
you arrive—
a bird sowing strings of dawn across the sky.
And one day you cried aloud:
“This is Cairo!”
History trembled,
and still your echo resounds in the depths of my heart in reverence,
like a nation’s prayer rising at the hush of dawn.
So it is that poetry overflows,
when the riverbanks break beneath the flood’s force,
a deluge of gratitude and nobility,
drowning souls in the sanctity of confession.
Forgive me…
I could not hide my awe through all these years,
and now—this moment—my rhymes overcome me,
and I pour out what my heart has carried,
without disguise, without delay.
O daughter of the eternal voice,
O fragrance of ages,
from you the word is reborn,
like the lotus rising pure from the mud,
shining, fearless of the storm.
Cairo, the city you once called by name,
still listens to you,
and her Nile still bears your resonance
as the waves bear the longing of boats.
Taghreed…
If people fade yet memory remains,
the poem shall enshrine you.
And if the lights go dark,
Egypt’s heart will stay your everlasting beacon.
