When Men Cry 

Men do cry…

And when they do, the sky seems to fall,

as though it fears the wind

might bruise the silence.

Their tears—weightier than wounds

that bleed beneath the skin

cleanse the stains of time

and pour like a cascade

of noble pain.

They cry when memory raises before them

the face of a slain man

who never found a shroud,

or the lament of a mother

whose voice dissolved

behind the bars of forgetting.

They cry when the scent

of a long-gone beloved rises again,

and the braids of sorrow

sweep across the shoulders of the horizon.

It is a weeping

that inscribes upon the page of night

the testament of the pure:

that justice has yet to be born,

and that sorrow, for men,

is a homeland

none can rival them in.

Now… It Happens Here

These mornings arrive incomplete,

burdened with lack,

with misplaced faces,

disasters passing like fractured light.

In my palm

a talisman lost

in the wind of hope.

If only grief were a trembling spark

that fades

before it burns whole.

One of them spoke

from the thirst of a poem,

scattering her promises,

casting a body

whose fire still resists

the aging of time.

May I flash,

a brief lightning

in the shadows of astonishment?

Another trial comes

with a dawn

that laughs too loudly,

as one who hides his tears

between the ribs.

Can laughter deceive us long?

I gather crumbs of light

from the memory of the window,

stitching the rents of the soul,

pretending to the clouds

that rain is near.

But the wind betrays the shade,

strips the fragile secrets bare,

and leaves me only

a belated gleam:

that incomplete mornings

are never repaired.

Houses of the Straw of Memory

The spider’s house

emptiness trembling

when loneliness touches it.

Reema Hamza

Syria

Improvisations on a Nearing Dawn

Text by :Reema Hamza

—The Vision—

I saw not eleven stars—

but a tablet, played by echo,

there—where dawn bends gently:

girls and fields

shaking hands with God

in a hymn.

—————– 

Interpretation

1• Where Dawn Sings:

There, where the morning begins to breathe,

the girls planted their braids into the earth—

and the stalks rose,

bearing the sun’s very first smile.

2• To Touch the Infinite:

When the song rose high,

fields, girls, and sky folded

into a single hand—

and greeted eternity.

3• Fields of Innocence:

In the face of dawn,

the fields murmur the tale of the girls,

each blossom signed

with the ink of a song.

4• The Sacred Vow:

A girl beneath the hush of morning

chants God’s names in verse—

and the rain,

obedient, begins to fall.

Reema Salman Hamza of Syria

Graduate of the Higher Institute of Music, specialization (Violin). Editor-in-chief of the newspaper “World of Culture.” Editor at Daily Global Nation, English. Member of the International Advisory Board at Farsala Academy, Greece, Athens. I write in various literary genres including classical poetry, metric poetry, prose poems, articles, and short story art. I have practiced literary work as an administrator and editor in many prestigious platforms and newspapers. My texts have been translated into several languages including English, Italian, Albanian, Spanish, French, English, and Chinese. I participated in a literary encyclopedia titled “Oasis of Creativity,” a book that includes Arab creators, published by the General Organization for the Nile and Euphrates in its first and second parts.

I participated in the book “The First Drop of Rain” by Dr. researcher Amani Ibrahim. The book “Dialectical Cultural Digging Methodology” includes critical studies on my texts. I participated in the great international anthology of poets of love and peace, organized by the Moroccan Creators Association. I participated in the fourth volume of the international book “Mandib” under the patronage of the Mandib International Foundation, India. 

I participated with female creatives from the Arab world in the book (Arab Women’s Letters) published by Dar Al-Sanabel, Palestine. I have poetry collections including “The Thread That Became a String,” “Poems That Chase Me,” and a book of critical studies on my poetic experience. I participated in a literary encyclopedia translated into English and Russian, including creatives from around the world, titled “Breath Of The World,” supervised by the writer Raisa Melenkova. I participated in the third part of the global dialogue series “The Unwritten Chapter” about literary Barcelona, which includes dialogues with a selected group of creatives from around the world.