1 I heard him say (his mouth was a stone): "I no longer want those heavy steps of mine. And these chains in whose ringing I die. God is the iron in my chains." *** And he said, his eyelids laden with dust, and invitation in his voice: "The hour that was to come, has not." 2 My window is closed -- my window to whose light I thread my eyes, my sight embalmed with a shroud. My present: blood -- destinies held hostage in a homeland skirted by death. As for the others -- the world is theirs. God is lavishly served on a platter of brains. 3 I changed life: the form of its motion, a fellow human chained to his bread, choking for air -- God remains suspended in his throat and still his voice overwhelms me (his mouth a stone): "I no longer want these heavy steps of mine." 4 Could it be salvation is fulfilled only through my body, my death a cause for resurrection? This is how we live: singers in a chorus who arrange their mirages into song while caverns are sanctified and monuments raised in their name. *** Before me numerous others -- Christ and those who came after among them -- have died; could it be that salvation is fulfilled only through my body. 5 I heard him say (his mouth was a stone): "We cannot see, not yet, and the hour that will come as they said, has stopped." And it was said: yesterday he disappeared, his voice vanished -- it was said that he had died. He whose eyes were a horizon and new windows, his voice an invitation, his arms two streams of red geraniums. *** And it was said that those who rushed to mourn him, mumbled together and whispered among themselves; is it only through blood then that blood shall find its end? ________________ Translated by Sargon Boulus