The reading book is a beautiful era in our lives, and some features are still present in our memory, containing wisdom, poetry, songs, and poems that carry positive energies about the love of our homeland, Palestine, and the language of life. We possessed extraordinary intelligence in memorizing prose or poetry, even though we did not have the luxuries of these days. Some studied and memorized by the light of a lamp without electricity or even a notebook and pen, but we owned joy and perseverance. Going to the distant school on foot, summer and winter, carrying our books and notebooks in a bag or a homemade satchel, and even wrapping the books in a cloth, the black shoes we wore in the mud, but we went to school with joy. In the reading class, we listened to exciting and beautiful stories that were easy to memorize, like the orange grove and the usurped land, and there were songs filled with much musical and poetic simplicity and lofty beautiful meanings. We remember a story, a poem, or a song from that beautiful era, and from my memory, I recount some of the poetry and songs we used to sing, such as the morning anthem
When the morning shines * we abandon sleep and wake up to the fox's poem
The fox appeared one day in the robes of the preachers and even the coffee we sang for it, I am the beloved dark one, but the memory of Ahmad Shawqi's poem Two Birds in Hejaz remained in memory.
Two birds in the Hej
az settled on a branch
In a calm from the ri
ver, neither beautiful nor charming
Between them they pro
duced a charm on the branch
A wind that blew from Ye
men greeted them and said you are pearls
in a neglected container
I saw around this cont
ainer and in the shadow of Eden
Gardens as if they we
re a remainder from those of Sana'a
Where love is sugar, an
d the water is honey and milk
No bird saw them nor he
ard of them without being enchanted
Come let’s reach it
in an hour's time
One of them said to
him, and the birds are wise
Oh wind, you are a chil
d of captivity, how did you know what stable is
Even if it were the paradi
se of eternity in Yemen
Nothing equals the home
land
And also the masterpiece of Ilia Abu Madi
[Continues with the poetry of Ilia Abu Madi and others, similar to the untranslated poetic construction]
And there is the masterpiece by the poet Abdul Monem Al Rafai, A Rose from Our Blood, which was sung by the late artist Farid Al Atrash, we memorized it by heart
A Rose from Our Blood
Farid Al Atrash
Ask the high heavens about us and the old times
Did we ever breach trust since knowing us
The virtues that lived through us
Still run fiercely in our blood
Glory smiled at us when it saw us
Colored with the heroes' blood our colors
The freedom fighters' wedding, to water the foes
With red cups and sorrowful tunes
The desert roared, complaining about its Arabs
So we clothed it in roaring and smoke
Since we watered it with our high blood
It knew that Meda's greatness nurtured it
Spread the horror, and pour out your fire
However you wish, you will not find cowards
The events became more vital from us
Violence only increased our vigor
It’s an honor for death that we feed it
Formidable souls that refuse disgrace
A rose from our blood in his hand
If fire approached it, it turned into gardens
Oh jihad, glory clapped for it
Wore laurel and chamomile
It’s an honor that magnifies Palestine
And builds an unmatched glory
If a wound bled from its forehead
Our lips kissed it devoutly
And a moan that the confidences...
And there are many other anthems and poems such as My Brother, the Oppressors Have Crossed the Limits, Prayer of the East, Anthem of My Country You Are for Me, and We Are the Youth, We Own Tomorrow, which we sang with unparalleled enthusiasm, and others that the reading book contained over the years.
