By: Rahoz Shwan

Pick up your bag, Khalil; life allows no time to rest!

No longer on summer mornings, As in my childhood days upon waking, do I step into the courtyard to listen to the melodies of the doves; Not just the doves, For no one cares about the crying voice of humanity anymore! Take up your saz, Khalil, The bombs are raining down again; it is a thunderous roar, lest it distort your melody, Lest it ruin your song. Set forth, Do not waste time watering the plane trees; the sun never rises here, And no tree offers any shade.

Throw away your pen, Burn all the pages; here, the rifles write all our stories, This homeland does not understand the stroke of a pen!

Teach your tongue to lie, to curse, to speak nonsense; scrape away honesty with a knife, Strip away its prayers, recite no worship with it, Do not read poetry through it; here, life cares nothing for meaning.

Hurry, hurry brother, let us leave, If you wish for us to live just a little; This journey is a quest for meaning… Look, death has arrived, Pick up your bag, Khalil, Life allows no time to rest!

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Rahoz Shwan is a 26-year-old Kurdish poet living in Kirkuk. His writing explores themes of displacement, existential longing, and the devastating impact of conflict on human memory and the natural world. Through evocative imagery and raw emotion, his work captures the struggles of contemporary life in a changing landscape.