Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers June 2025
What If We Were Trees, poem by Fawzia Alawi Alawi.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
What If We Were Trees
What if we were trees, our roots entwined
in some far-off earth,
drinking in the scent of hidden springs,
nourished by the milk of stones
and the unquenched lava of volcanoes?
What if we were acacias,
sycamores, or willows lost in light’s embrace,
kissing the details of shadow?
Why not be apple trees, perhaps,
to retell the tale of temptation,
mount the steed of knowledge,
search beyond those distant dunes
and hills robed in life’s green?
Surely, we’d weave into our souls
what birds teach of idle chatter,
what leopards know of desire’s fierceness,
what clouds murmur in water’s hum.
Trees we’d be, filling valleys with fruit,
letting nightingales nest in our chests,
deer sleep against our trunks,
and among the buds of our sighs,
songbirds would sing.
Then surely, there’d be no war, no blood,
no orphans, no widows,
no wailing—
only reed flutes,
seasons of grapes,
and cups brimming with fragrance and love.
© Fawzia Alawi Alawi
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Fawzia Alawi Alawi is a Tunisian poet, novelist and essayist who has published nine poetry and short story collections, in addition to a novel entitled “Faces for One Woman” (2020). She also won several national and regional awards.