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Poetry

Path of Light

By Amina Saïd
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker

Where have you come from?
From the other world.
And where are you going?
Towards the other world.

Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya

“Song of the Hermit”
 

I slept for three centuries on a bed of stones
I saw things men had forgotten
I measured the distance that separated heaven from earth
I read the palm’s lines I delivered the augury
a voice not my own spoke from my mouth
I disappeared into a city that had disappeared
armed horsemen invaded our plains
there we stayed waiting for the next barbarians
the sea withdrew from the doors of my city
I gained the favor of the earth’s rivers
I tattooed the day with my dreams
my face saw my other face
I did not hear the voice that was calling me
the hand that sought me did not find me
I was born many times from each star
I died as many times with each day’s sun
I took the early boat headed for nowhere
I asked for a room in the country of others
I had accomplished nothing before our farewells
I lived in the setting sun in the Levant in the wind’s space
I was that foreigner who came with evening
doubly foreign between north and south
I carved sad birds on gray stones
I drew those stones and inhabited them
I built rafts where there was no ocean
I pitched tents where there was no desert
caravans brought me to a dream of the orient
my calligraphies traveled on cloud-back
I remembered the snow of almond trees
I followed birds’ flight-paths
to the moon’s mountain to the eiderdown of birth
I learned and forgot all the languages on earth
I made a bonfire of all its homelands
some nights I drank from the flask of oblivion
I searched for my star in the bed of stars
I kept your love in the crease of my palm
I wove a carpet from the wool of memory
I unfolded the world under the arch of beginnings
I bandaged the wounds of twilight
I made bouquets of my seasons and offered them to life
I counted the trees that separate me from you
there were two of us on earth now we are alone here
I pulled a belt of words tight around my waist
I covered the mirrors’ illusions with a shroud
I cultivated silence like a rare plant
glimmer by glimmer I deciphered the night
for a while death courted me
in the sun I sought the way to the sun
I lay down in my grave and rose again
I went astray and found myself between one genesis and the next
I waited for you without waiting
until you became a poem
I mixed flesh with clay and with light
I mixed breath with what was already breath
I lived in the heated house of your voice
I made memories come to birth before they had lived
I hid my love in shadows’ modesty
I asked myself how to say it before saying it
and why I did not say it
I said that it was time to go towards you
I crawled to your lips across a bed of thorns
I believed that what united us
was what resembled us
in you I sought a country a language
in drawing away from the dream I came closer to it
I darkened pages with the poem’s night
the black bird of silence crumpled them one by one
I still don’t know what language speaks me and absolves me
I followed a path of light that led to the horizon
my country : a bouquet of farewells gathered over time
I unrolled its shores like a matting of alpha
I found a name for what was left of childhood
to flower in your arms
I threw the oranges of memory into a well
I drew my love in chalk on a wall of water
nothing remains in human memory
I walked within myself and far from myself
sometimes a shadow moulded itself to my shadow
I severed a bond at each departure
freeing the firebird from memory’s ashes
I walked within you and far from you
I allied myself with the alphabet of sand
with the wave’s undulations
with the peace which lowers your eyelids
my song will be in the image of that peace
I recogized dawn from the dawn in its gaze
I wanted a day in the image of those I love
I prepared the night for the harvest of dreams
I courted the visible embraced the invisible
I read about the earth in the great book of the earth
I bore witness to the ephemeral and the eternity of the instant
I lingered on the threshold of each threshold
our dead called from the other shore
the lines of their world furrowed the palms of our hands
the echo of their voices disappeared in the distance
the blood suicides were so many stones
on the ramparts of time
I took my first steps in the river’s silt
I was buried alive in sand under a mass of dunes
the cavern was blocked up to make my sleep eternal
my body was exiled to its own interior
my name was erased from all the registers
until the nuptials of the riverbanks
I carried emptiness in me like a drowned man’s mouth
December disappeared behind the horizon
I called out – only silence listened
I saw centuries stray until they reached us
the pomegranate tree flowered again between the stelae
my city changed its rulers like necklaces
my land : a cloud in the rising sun’s margin
why seek a place when we are the place
my shadow climbed a long path to reach me
one day I entered the house of language
I nested two birds where the heart ought to be
I crossed the poem’s mirror and it crossed me
I trusted the spark of the word
I placed a rebellious love in the trees’ springtime
and freed my hands so that the doves could take flight

Translation of “Sentier de lumière.” Copyright Amina Saïd. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2011 by Marilyn Hacker. All rights reserved.

English French (Original)

Where have you come from?
From the other world.
And where are you going?
Towards the other world.

Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya

“Song of the Hermit”
 

I slept for three centuries on a bed of stones
I saw things men had forgotten
I measured the distance that separated heaven from earth
I read the palm’s lines I delivered the augury
a voice not my own spoke from my mouth
I disappeared into a city that had disappeared
armed horsemen invaded our plains
there we stayed waiting for the next barbarians
the sea withdrew from the doors of my city
I gained the favor of the earth’s rivers
I tattooed the day with my dreams
my face saw my other face
I did not hear the voice that was calling me
the hand that sought me did not find me
I was born many times from each star
I died as many times with each day’s sun
I took the early boat headed for nowhere
I asked for a room in the country of others
I had accomplished nothing before our farewells
I lived in the setting sun in the Levant in the wind’s space
I was that foreigner who came with evening
doubly foreign between north and south
I carved sad birds on gray stones
I drew those stones and inhabited them
I built rafts where there was no ocean
I pitched tents where there was no desert
caravans brought me to a dream of the orient
my calligraphies traveled on cloud-back
I remembered the snow of almond trees
I followed birds’ flight-paths
to the moon’s mountain to the eiderdown of birth
I learned and forgot all the languages on earth
I made a bonfire of all its homelands
some nights I drank from the flask of oblivion
I searched for my star in the bed of stars
I kept your love in the crease of my palm
I wove a carpet from the wool of memory
I unfolded the world under the arch of beginnings
I bandaged the wounds of twilight
I made bouquets of my seasons and offered them to life
I counted the trees that separate me from you
there were two of us on earth now we are alone here
I pulled a belt of words tight around my waist
I covered the mirrors’ illusions with a shroud
I cultivated silence like a rare plant
glimmer by glimmer I deciphered the night
for a while death courted me
in the sun I sought the way to the sun
I lay down in my grave and rose again
I went astray and found myself between one genesis and the next
I waited for you without waiting
until you became a poem
I mixed flesh with clay and with light
I mixed breath with what was already breath
I lived in the heated house of your voice
I made memories come to birth before they had lived
I hid my love in shadows’ modesty
I asked myself how to say it before saying it
and why I did not say it
I said that it was time to go towards you
I crawled to your lips across a bed of thorns
I believed that what united us
was what resembled us
in you I sought a country a language
in drawing away from the dream I came closer to it
I darkened pages with the poem’s night
the black bird of silence crumpled them one by one
I still don’t know what language speaks me and absolves me
I followed a path of light that led to the horizon
my country : a bouquet of farewells gathered over time
I unrolled its shores like a matting of alpha
I found a name for what was left of childhood
to flower in your arms
I threw the oranges of memory into a well
I drew my love in chalk on a wall of water
nothing remains in human memory
I walked within myself and far from myself
sometimes a shadow moulded itself to my shadow
I severed a bond at each departure
freeing the firebird from memory’s ashes
I walked within you and far from you
I allied myself with the alphabet of sand
with the wave’s undulations
with the peace which lowers your eyelids
my song will be in the image of that peace
I recogized dawn from the dawn in its gaze
I wanted a day in the image of those I love
I prepared the night for the harvest of dreams
I courted the visible embraced the invisible
I read about the earth in the great book of the earth
I bore witness to the ephemeral and the eternity of the instant
I lingered on the threshold of each threshold
our dead called from the other shore
the lines of their world furrowed the palms of our hands
the echo of their voices disappeared in the distance
the blood suicides were so many stones
on the ramparts of time
I took my first steps in the river’s silt
I was buried alive in sand under a mass of dunes
the cavern was blocked up to make my sleep eternal
my body was exiled to its own interior
my name was erased from all the registers
until the nuptials of the riverbanks
I carried emptiness in me like a drowned man’s mouth
December disappeared behind the horizon
I called out – only silence listened
I saw centuries stray until they reached us
the pomegranate tree flowered again between the stelae
my city changed its rulers like necklaces
my land : a cloud in the rising sun’s margin
why seek a place when we are the place
my shadow climbed a long path to reach me
one day I entered the house of language
I nested two birds where the heart ought to be
I crossed the poem’s mirror and it crossed me
I trusted the spark of the word
I placed a rebellious love in the trees’ springtime
and freed my hands so that the doves could take flight

Sentier de lumière

—D’où es-tu venue?
—De l’autre monde.
—Et où vas-tu?
—Vers l’autre monde.

Rabia al-Adawiyya,
Chant de la recluse.

 

j’ai dormi trois siècles sur un lit de rochers
j’ai vu des choses oubliées des hommes
j’ai mesuré la distance qui sépare le ciel de la terre
j’ai lu les lignes de la main j’ai rendu les oracles
une voix qui n’était pas ma voix a parlé par ma bouche
j’ai disparu dans une ville elle-même disparue
des cavaliers en armes ont envahi nos plaines
nous sommes restés dans l’attente d’autres barbares
la mer s’est retirée des portes de ma ville
je me suis concilié les fleuves de la terre
j’ai orné le jour du tatouage de mes rêves
mon visage a vu mon autre visage
je n’ai pas entendu la voix qui m’appelait
la main qui me cherchait ne m’a pas trouvée
je suis née plusieurs fois de chaque étoile
je suis morte autant de fois du soleil des jours
j’ai pris très tôt des bateaux pour nulle part
j’ai demandé une chambre dans la patrie des autres
je n’avais rien accompli avant nos adieux
j’ai habité le couchant le levant et l’espace du vent
j’étais cette étrangère qu’accompagnait le soir
deux fois étrangère entre nord et sud
j’ai gravé des oiseaux tristes sur des pierres grises
j’ai dessiné ces pierres et les habitées
j’ai construit des radeaux où il n’y avait pas d’océans
j’ai dressé des tentes où n’étaient nuls déserts
des caravanes m’ont conduite vers un rêve d’orient
mes calligraphies ont voyagé sur le dos des nuages
je me suis souvenue de la neige des amandiers
j’ai suivi la route aérienne des oiseaux
jusqu’au mont de la lune aux duvets des naissances
j’ai appris et oublié toutes les langues de la terre
j’ai fait un grand feu de toutes les patries
j’ai bu quelques soirs au flacon de l’oubli
j’ai cherché mon étoile dans le lit des étoiles
j’ai gardé mon amour dans le creux de ma paume
j’ai tissé un tapis avec la laine du souvenir
j’ai déplié le monde sous l’arche des commencements
j’ai pensé les plaies du crépuscule
j’ai mis en gerbes mes saisons pour les offrir à la vie
j’ai compté les arbres qui me séparent de toi
nous étions deux sur cette terre nous voilà seuls
j’ai serré une ceinture de mots autour de ma taille
j’ai recouvert d’un linceul l’illusion des miroirs
j’ai cultivé le silence comme une plante rare
lueur après lueur j’ai déchifré la nuit
la mort un temps m’a courtisée
j’ai cherché dans le soleil la direction du soleil
je me suis couchée dans ma tombe et me suis relevée
je me suis égarée puis retrouvée d’une genèse à l’autre
je t’ai attendu sans t’attendre
jusqu’à ce que tu deviennes poème
j’ai mêlé la chair à l’argile et à la lumière
j’ai mêlé le souffle à ce qui était déjà souffle
j’ai habité la maison chaude de ta voix
j’ai fait naître les souvenirs avant qu’ils n’aient vécu
j’ai caché mon amour sous les pudeurs de l’ombre
je me suis demandé comment le dire avant de le dire
et pourquoi je ne le disais pas
j’ai dit qu’il était temps que j’aille vers toi
j’ai rampé jusqu’à tes lèvres sur un lit de ronces
j’ai cru que ce qui nous unissait
était ce qui nous ressemblait
je me suis cherché en toi un pays une langue
en m’éloignant du rêve je m’en suis approchée
j’ai noirci des pages avec la nuit du poème
l’oiseau noir du silence les froissait une à une
j’ignore encore quelle langue me parle et m’absout
j’ai pris un sentier de lumière qui mène à l’horizon
mon pays : un bouquet d’adieux cueillis au fil du temps
j’ai déroulé ses rives comme une natte d’alpha
j’ai trouvé un nom pour ce qui reste de l’enfance
pour fleurir entre tes bras
j’ai jeté les oranges du souvenir dans un puits
j’ai dessiné mon amour à la craie sur une muraille d’eau
rien ne demeure dans la mémoire des hommes
je marchais en moi et loin de moi
une ombre parfois épousait mon ombre
à chaque départ je tranchais un lien
libérais l’oiseau de feu des cendres de la mémoire
je marchais en toi et loin de toi
je me suis alliée à l’alphabet du sable
aux ondulations de la vague
à la paix qui clôt tes paupières
mon chant sera à l’image de cette paix
j’ai reconnu l’aube à l’aube dans son regard
j’ai voulu le jour à l’image de ceux que j’aime
j’ai apprêté la nuit pour la moisson du rêve
j’ai courtisé le visible j’ai étreint l’invisible
j’ai tout lu de la terre dans le grand livre de la terre
j’ai témoigné de l’éphémère et de l’éternité de l’instant
je me suis attardée au seuil de chaque seuil
nos morts appelaient de l’autre rive
les lignes de leur monde sillonnaient nos mains
l’écho de leurs voix s’épuisait dans la distance
les suicides du sang étaient autant de pierres
dans les remparts du temps
j’ai fait mes premiers pas dans le limon des fleuves
on m’a ensablée vive sous un amas de dunes
on a obstrué la caverne—que mon sommeil s’éternise
on a exilé mon corps à l’intérieur de mon corps
on a effacé mon nom de tous les registres
jusqu’aux épousailles des deux rives
j’ai porté en moi le vide comme la bouche d’un noyé
décembre a disparu derrière l’horizon
j’ai appelé – seul le silence était attentif
j’ai vu les siècles s’égarer jusqu’à nous
le grenadier refleurissait entre les stèles
ma ville changeait de maître comme de parure
ma terre : un nuage en marge du levant
pourquoi chercher un lieu quand nous sommes le lieu
mon ombre a gravi un long chemin jusqu’à moi
un jour je suis entrée dans la maison de la langue
j’ai niché deux oiseaux à la place du coeur
j’ai traversé le miroir du poème et il m’a traversée
je me suis fiée à l’éclair de la parole
j’ai déposé un amour insoumis dans le printemps des arbres
et délivré mes mains pour que s’envolent les colombes

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