M'hamed Kouidmi Deramchi

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. Three passions govern my life: The longings for love, the search for knowledge, And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind. Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness. In the union of love I have seen and still do In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined. With equal passion I have sought knowledge and still do. I have wished to understand the hearts of people and still long to. I have wished to know why the stars shine and I still don’t. Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens, But always pity brings me back to earth; Cries of pain reverberated in my heart Of children in famine, of victims tortured And of old people left helpless. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, And I too suffer. This has been my life; and it still is; I find it worth living.