Stop, and weep
Not sadness over the corpse of
the remnants of a cursed god
and so not a sadness
over a bird burdened with open space
Don’t take me-
Don’t leave me-
maybe, my two friends, it’s a wasteland without language
maybe you too can postpone the probability of death a little
for my prison cell is my body
and the ode incidental freedom
* * *
A palm tree shakes off its pollen
breaking into tears-
Whom have I struck,
if the lightning-herder goes astray?
And who has struck me?
Is he rising?
The earth follows-
is he falling?
Overcome,
surely he is higher than the sky below-
* * *
I said this is my vision
and my bleeding attests to it.
The river doesn’t bend except
for this wager
but I, when a woman falls heavily
at the end of night, I forget my hands
on her voice, and then she slips away
leaving me my chains,
to write something, finally-
but I, whenever the late birds struggle
the horizon chokes within me
or has the hour’s mirage
raised the dust I gargle
Oh, these two . . .
give me back a little space
since my cell is a body I claim
and a freedom that claims me-
Give me back a question
for the answers scattered by the tribes
or that scattered me over them,
no harm in that . . .
Look: the coming day, overflowing, will gather me
teardrop by teardrop, like an ode in its cradle,
and then illuminate me suddenly,
like a verse at its climax,
and bless me with its antithesis.
* * *
Oh sister . . . mother . . .
Any lover . . .
If god saw his image
in our embraces, it would be revealed . . .
But he doesn’t see-
other than locked doors
and shackles-
And the sky stretches
under the soldiers’ boots-
other than a braided sky
its throne is of blood
its law acid-
Does the spirit breathe in
from the trees of Dujeil,
the description and the bombardment making them stagger
until they send back what’s been inhaled as blood in Rabat?
That minaret-a stab in the void
That mast-its heel in dirt
that doesn’t end in the sky.
This is Golgotha
and blood washes the Nile
of its water,
Barada of its nightmares,
and the Euphrates.
* * *
I said this is my vision
and you, too, witness
an ember . . . two embers . . . three
And dawn breaks
its blue doesn’t stray
neighing, neighing
running its course
making known the parting of this time-
We’re all heading toward what’s to come . . .
They’ve all passed on to what’s gone.
So cushion me in the tenderness of my wounds then,
and get up . . .
The child writes in the “sea” meter
at the beginning of his notebook:
And they stand-only a step-
shedding just a tear
as they get up.
Tadmor Prison 1992
