Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Strange beginnings troubled me.
She would dry me on her watery handkerchief…her tears,
Then she would deliver me to the Creator.
When I perceived some of the city’s strangeness,
I lost my crudeness.
So she concealed me as mythical sand, guided by the wind into a whirlwind and fire…
I wished the remnants of Rome would emerge and steal me
On their swords before my time.
– My endless legends said:
The suns would dry me and I would “bend” into clouds,
The winds would roll them to the ends of beginnings,
Until I broke like a falling tear,
And the eyelids of the earth would lie still…
And I remained searching for the ruin of water…
For the sorrow of the earth; so that I might not die…
Your clay resisted, and extended a hand;
To protect me on a mountain that embraced a sigh like water…
And I saw your face, frowning like hell…
And I kept drawing on my memory our final union…
When I met you and we mingled,
My femininity was fleeing,
And a skirmishing wind was leading me to you.
And I kept drawing like a child two palm trees,
And a boat that comes with two oars from the furthest veins of water,
Until I awoke to the burning of my first candle
In your distant darkness.
– My endless legends said:
I will keep melting in flames, so that I may reveal what your match hides in the whiteness of snow,
And flow from my wound that you made me bleed, a new wax that will not melt.
My endless legends said:
Surely I will drop candle after candle
And let the threads of my burning passion flow
That will pierce the pain that has been mended in your echo…
All the longings will pass… the fires…
The pulse of my rhyme… and you,
And I will scatter your buried sorrow
In tales of love and infatuation…
Layla… Buthayna… the spirit of “Elsa”…
Which of us had our ships sink on the shore of love?
Tell “Ibn Zaydun”—the one who sang in our marble palace for a time and wandered—
And his mad friend—the one who “got entangled on the day of Darat Jaljal,” and forgot to weep over the marble candle—:
The city’s alleys became drunk…
The wine cups became drunk on my lips,
The “greenness of the snow” melted and the drowned one committed suicide,
And there was none but “Zuleikha” treacherously cutting the shirt of your Prophet from behind and weeping. My legends spoke… and I was captivated:
The down of candles… the scent of camphor…
The sweetness of milk… the cherries of fingertips when they dried…
The language of lilies and the creaking of narcissus…
The touch of fingertips on the edges of snow
And the lamp with its broken light…
As if the oil of its fire were snow that flew in all directions!
“The Didymoune” no longer loosens her braids
And the ancient pain in “Othello” does not yawn
The journey to reach her farthest reaches is fraught with apprehension and submission
My legends spoke… and then:
The woman falls like fresh candles…
Boxes from “Denmark” with fresh milk…
Pieces of cheese wrapped in milk,
And she keeps falling like fat and the heat of calories in the frozen body…
And she keeps falling…
Then she falls…
Then she falls…
©®Hani Al-Fahham / Yemen
