“Al-Badr” is gone… and “The Traveler is gone”

Badr bin Abdul Mohsen, the prince of poets and the poet of princes. His ideas are new and the structure of his poems is modern, but his meanings reach deep into the human heart and the Arab conscience, touching his passions and playing on his nerves. He writes tafeel poetry flowing softly like a drop of water on a rusty liver, and great composers flock to his words because they ignite them in their souls. New, unique melodies that stimulate their talents to shine, so that emotions and feelings echo in the throats of the singers.

Death was chosen by “Al-Badr” while he was walking slowly in his eighth decade, “75 years old,” after scattering roses of letters on white, a journey fragrant with creativity that warms the ears, encourages hearts, and incites strong emotions. He is an authentic Arab dimension and a “Bedouin,” whose dress “on the board is torn” and is stripped of his authentic language. With his unique dialect, he paints his meanings in brightly colored paintings that are charming to look at and remain in the memory of generations.

“Al-Badr” was the poet who accompanied the grandchildren to the grandparents in immortalizing all of their feelings through his letters, images, and meanings. It is not strange for him to memorize his poetry, “The Grandson,” on his modern and contemporary tablet, and to remember it with his “father,” who memorized it from a book, and to sing about it with “the grandfather,” who recites words with it. A melody that transcends time and space.

Every reader brings to mind the verses of “Al-Badr” as he encounters in his life what suits his situation, tells his feelings, and achieves the goal he wants. This is why Al-Rukban’s poems followed after they became instrumentals that time sings about, as if they were in “the mouth of eternity smiling,” as Al-Mutanabbi said. Although “Al-Badr” was known for his ta’feela poetry, he was a poet who excelled in vertical poetry, and he had immortal verses and sumptuous meanings, far from being long, enough of his pendants to encircle necks. He always “splits the rhyme and hits the joint,” as the Arabs say, so he says in rhymed and metered poetry:

O you who strike the rock with a bare arm/ Between the whiteness of the bone there is nothing that has flowed, and O you who are lost in the forest of black ink/ Life is wasted, you have not brought two letters of ivory.

His purposes are in love, connection and abandonment, in reproach, separation and apology, in national pride and deep belonging, in flirtation and youthfulness in the environment and the desert, in camels, horses and palm trees, in all of that and more. He wrote “Al-Badr” and found unique meanings that resemble Sharif Al-Radi’s position on the meaning of “the greatness of boredom.” The Bored Paper, and the poems of Al-Badr are difficult to forget because they were written with the ink of eternity.

The vocabulary of the desert in his poetry tells of the authentic, extended memory of the Arabs, which the poets of willows and rivers know only through learning and not living, while “Al-Badr” weaves it with images and vocabulary, meanings and values, magnificence and strength, because it represents the natural extension of the pre-Islamic Arabs, most of whom knew nothing other than the Arabian Peninsula as a homeland. In the homeland and patriotism, “Al-Badr” delved into meanings and compositions that had never been achieved before, and he became the undisputed singing poet of the nation. He was “the eminent one,” the first and the forerunner, and all those who sought to imitate him were between “the praying one,” that is, the second, and “the entertaining one,” the third, or “the next,” the fourth. The Arabs used to arrange the horses in the race, and his national poetry was covered with pottery, with the delicacy of the text and the sweetness of the word. No one would forget “Above the Clouds.”

It was as if “Al-Badr” was bidding farewell to everyone when he said: “Oh God, my heart, we have held back, the world has become narrow for us.” After his departure, people began repeating: “The street lights faded and the light of the letters went out,” and “The traveler is gone.” In his poetry, “Al-Badr” was a genius and a genius, according to “Al-Tantawi’s” classification. He took from this and that. He had a say in every feeling and a meaning in every feeling. That is why he recited his poems and memorized his words. Arabs, young and old, from every country, wrote his sweet poem “Horouf.” Gold” says:

I wish Abu Dhabi had a wide fringe, and the eyes were calm, and the residence was long, a house of glory and a story written by the lightning of the clouds.

*Saudi writer