1
|
My voice rings out, this time, from Damascus
|
It rings out from the house of my mother and father
|
In Sham. The geography of my body changes.
|
The cells of my blood become green.
|
My alphabet is green.
|
In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth
|
A new voice emerges for my voice
|
And my fingers
|
Become a tribe
|
2
|
I return to Damascus
|
Riding on the backs of clouds
|
Riding the two most beautiful horses in the world
|
The horse of passion.
|
The horse of poetry.
|
I return after sixty years
|
To search for my umbilical cord,
|
For the Damascene barber who circumcised me,
|
For the midwife who tossed me in the basin under the bed
|
And received a gold lira from my father,
|
She left our house
|
On that day in March of 1923
|
Her hands stained with the blood of the poem…
|
3
|
I return to the womb in which I was formed . . .
|
To the first book I read in it . . .
|
To the first woman who taught me
|
The geography of love . . .
|
And the geography of women . . .
|
4
|
I return
|
After my limbs have been strewn across all the continents
|
And my cough has been scattered in all the hotels
|
After my mother’s sheets scented with laurel soap
|
I have found no other bed to sleep on . . .
|
And after the “bride” of oil and thyme
|
That she would roll up for me
|
No longer does any other "bride" in the world please me
|
And after the quince jam she would make with her own hands
|
I am no longer enthusiastic about breakfast in the morning
|
And after the blackberry drink that she would make
|
No other wine intoxicates me . . .
|
5
|
I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque
|
And greet everyone in it
|
Corner to . . . corner
|
Tile to . . . tile
|
Dove to . . . dove
|
I wander in the gardens of Kufi script
|
And pluck beautiful flowers of God’s words
|
And hear with my eye the voice of the mosaics
|
And the music of agate prayer beads
|
A state of revelation and rapture overtakes me,
|
So I climb the steps of the first minaret that encounters me
|
Calling:
|
“Come to the jasmine”
|
“Come to the jasmine”
|
6
|
Returning to you
|
Stained by the rains of my longing
|
Returning to fill my pockets
|
With nuts, green plums, and green almonds
|
Returning to my oyster shell
|
Returning to my birth bed
|
For the fountains of Versailles
|
Are no compensation for the Fountain Café
|
And Les Halles in Paris
|
Is no compensation for the Friday market
|
And Buckingham Palace in London
|
Is no compensation for Azem Palace
|
And the pigeons of San Marco in Venice
|
Are no more blessed than the doves in the Umayyad Mosque
|
And Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides
|
Is no more glorious than the tomb of Salah al-Din Al-Ayyubi…
|
7
|
I wander in the narrow alleys of Damascus.
|
Behind the windows, honeyed eyes awake
|
And greet me . . .
|
The stars wear their gold bracelets
|
And greet me
|
And the pigeons alight from their towers
|
And greet me
|
And the clean Shami cats come out
|
Who were born with us . . .
|
Grew up with us . . .
|
And married with us . . .
|
To greet me . . .
|
8
|
I immerse myself in the Buzurriya Souq
|
Set a sail in a cloud of spices
|
Clouds of cloves
|
And cinnamon . . .
|
And camomile . . .
|
I perform ablutions in rose water once.
|
And in the water of passion many times . . .
|
And I forget—while in the Souq al-‘Attarine—
|
All the concoctions of Nina Ricci . . .
|
And Coco Chanel . . .
|
What are you doing to me Damascus?
|
How have you changed my culture? My aesthetic taste?
|
For I have been made to forget the ringing of cups of licorice
|
The piano concerto of Rachmaninoff . . .
|
How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
|
For I have become the first conductor in the world
|
That leads an orchestra from a willow tree!!
|
9
|
I have come to you . . .
|
From the history of the Damascene rose
|
That condenses the history of perfume . . .
|
From the memory of al-Mutanabbi
|
That condenses the history of poetry . . .
|
I have come to you . . .
|
From the blossoms of bitter orange . . .
|
And the dahlia . . .
|
And the narcissus . . .
|
And the "nice boy" . . .
|
That first taught me drawing . . .
|
I have come to you . . .
|
From the laughter of Shami women
|
That first taught me music . . .
|
And the beginning of adolesence
|
From the spouts of our alley
|
That first taught me crying
|
And from my mother’s prayer rug
|
That first taught me
|
The path to God . . .
|
10
|
I open the drawers of memory
|
One . . . then another
|
I remember my father . . .
|
Coming out of his workshop on Mu’awiya Alley
|
I remember the horse-drawn carts . . .
|
And the sellers of prickly pears . . .
|
And the cafés of al-Rubwa
|
That nearly—after five flasks of ‘araq—
|
Fall into the river
|
I remember the colored towels
|
As they dance on the door of Hammam al-Khayyatin
|
As if they were celebrating their national holiday.
|
I remember the Damascene houses
|
With their copper doorknobs
|
And their ceilings decorated with glazed tiles
|
And their interior courtyards
|
That remind you of descriptions of heaven . . .
|
11
|
The Damascene House
|
Is beyond the architectural text
|
The design of our homes . . .
|
Is based on an emotional foundation
|
For every house leans . . . on the hip of another
|
And every balcony . . .
|
Extends its hand to another facing it
|
Damascene houses are loving houses . . .
|
They greet one another in the morning . . .
|
And exchange visits . . .
|
Secretly—at night . . .
|
12
|
When I was a diplomat in Britain
|
Thirty years ago
|
My mother would send letters at the beginning of Spring
|
Inside each letter . . .
|
A bundle of tarragon . . .
|
And when the English suspected my letters
|
They took them to the laboratory
|
And turned them over to Scotland Yard
|
And explosives experts.
|
And when they grew weary of me . . . and my tarragon
|
They would ask: Tell us, by god . . .
|
What is the name of this magical herb that has made us dizzy?
|
Is it a talisman?
|
Medicine?
|
A secret code?
|
What is it called in English?
|
I said to them: It’s difficult for me to explain…
|
For tarragon is a language that only the gardens of Sham speak
|
It is our sacred herb . . .
|
Our perfumed eloquence
|
And if your great poet Shakespeare had known of tarragon
|
His plays would have been better . . .
|
In brief . . .
|
My mother is a wonderful woman . . . she loves me greatly . . .
|
And whenever she missed me
|
She would send me a bunch of tarragon . . .
|
Because for her, tarragon is the emotional equivalent
|
To the words: my darling . . .
|
And when the English didn’t understand one word of my poetic argument . . .
|
They gave me back my tarragon and closed the investigation . . .
|
13
|
From Khan Asad Basha
|
Abu Khalil al-Qabbani emerges . . .
|
In his damask robe . . .
|
And his brocaded turban . . .
|
And his eyes haunted with questions . . .
|
Like Hamlet’s
|
He attempts to present an avant-garde play
|
But they demand Karagoz’s tent . . .
|
He tries to present a text from Shakespeare
|
They ask him about the news of al-Zir . . .
|
He tries to find a single female voice
|
To sing with him . . .
|
“Oh That of Sham”
|
They load up their Ottoman rifles,
|
And fire into every rose tree
|
That sings professionally . . .
|
He tries to find a single woman
|
To repeat after him:
|
“Oh bird of birds, oh dove”
|
They unsheathe their knives
|
And slaughter all the descendents of doves . . .
|
And all the descendents of women . . .
|
After a hundred years . . .
|
Damascus apologized to Abu Khalil al-Qabbani
|
And they erected a magnificent theater in his name.
|
14
|
I put on the jubbah of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi
|
I descend from the peak of Mt. Qassiun
|
Carrying for the children of the city . . .
|
Peaches
|
Pomegranates
|
And sesame halawa . . .
|
And for its women . . .
|
Necklaces of turquoise . . .
|
And poems of love . . .
|
I enter . . .
|
A long tunnel of sparrows
|
Gillyflowers . . .
|
Hibiscus . . .
|
Clustered jasmine . . .
|
And I enter the questions of perfume . . .
|
And my schoolbag is lost from me
|
And the copper lunch case . . .
|
In which I used to carry my food . . .
|
And the blue beads
|
That my mother used to hang on my chest
|
So People of Sham
|
He among you who finds me . . .
|
let him return me to Umm Mu’ataz
|
And God’s reward will be his
|
I am your green sparrow . . . People of Sham
|
So he among you who finds me . . .
|
let him feed me a grain of wheat . . .
|
I am your Damascene rose . . . People of Sham
|
So he among you who finds me . . .
|
let him place me in the first vase . . .
|
I am your mad poet . . . People of Sham
|
So he among you who sees me . . .
|
let him take a souvenir photograph of me
|
Before I recover from my enchanting insanity . . .
|
I am your fugitive moon . . . People of Sham
|
So he among you who sees me . . .
|
Let him donate to me a bed . . . and a wool blanket . . .
|
Because I haven’t slept for centuries
|
_______________
|
Translated from the Arabic by Shareah Taleghani |