Warning

Lovers of hunting,
and beginners seeking your prey:
Don’t aim your rifles
at my happiness,
which isn’t worth
the price of the bullet
(you’d waste on it).
What seems to you
so nimble and fine,
like a fawn,
and flees
every which way,
like a partridge,
isn’t happiness.
Trust me:
my happiness bears
no relation to happiness.

-Taha Muhammad Ali, Palestinian poet
(Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi and Grabiel Levin)

[As read in The Poetry Paper, published by The Poetry Trust]