I Want to Go Up to Koura

I Want to Go Up to Koura (1986)

["I Want to Go Up to Koura" is a pastoral piece about returning to simple village life (Koura, up north),

with a particular reference to tomatoes (author is partial to tomatoes).]

I want to go up to Koura (1)

and I want to find an empty lot

and I want to dig the first hole

and plant the first stone.

And I want to build a small house

and install in it a small window

and sit in my home like a prince

and play on the string (stringed instrument, the Oud).

I want to get a special chicken

and set her up with her husband (a rooster)

and go and wait at the neighbors' (to give them privacy)

until I hear the voices of the chicks.

And I want to find me a cow

that would rain milk to the touch

and a donkey and a few goats

and a tough dog to keep the fox away.

I want to go up to Koura.

And another thing I want to do

is to start a garden

and plant all kinds of flowers.

But when it comes to vegetables

no zuchini and no eggplant

no cucumber and no garbanzo (chick peas);

even if I have a million acres

I will fill it with tomatoes.

Damn these nasty flies

I'm crazy about tomatoes.

I want to go up to Koura.

I'll spend my day out in the field

wearing a "shirwal" (2) that suits me

and ride my donkey and give him a hard time (lovingly)

and sing a song for him: O, O, O my beautiful donkey.

And if I ever miss talking to someone

I'll line up all the animals

and lecture them with speeches

and parables and wisdoms.

(To the animals) "Ho, settle down, if you don't mind."

And every time I feel like it

I'll go in search of figs

and eat a bellyful in the shade

and then take a nap

and stroll as slowly as I please

I won't leave a field out of my path

and I'll wave hello to the natives

and return to my home.

And I might find me a pretty girl

who entrusts God with her fate

and who likes the life of Koura

and would agree to marry me,

"I guess I'll marry him"

we'll have a party in the evening

and spread a first rate banquet

and dance the "dabkeh" (3) all night long

and go to bed happily wed.

And we will be at the ready

to have seven or eight children

so that when we tire of this earth

they will take care of us.

And when I become an old man

and the moment of reckoning is near at hand

and may whatever is bound to happen, happen

and I'm about to meet my maker,

I have one request, not two

that two young men of my descent

carry me in their arms

and walk out to the middle of the field

and dig a hole just my size

and plant me, so that my blood

will irrigate the tomatoes.

I'm crazy about tomatoes

I'm crazy about tomatoes

and I want to go up to Koura,

I want to go up to Koura.

(1) Author's ancestral region, in the Lebanese north.

(2) Folkloric baggy pants

(3) Folkloric dance