NEMER SAADY -
OLD RAIN IN A WOMAN’S WINTER
(Excerpts)
1
In my childhood, I befriended distant winters.
They were the back door to Sinbad’s world—a green ship or charming nymph
who wakes me up by passing her smile over my face
and I dream of myself a child chasing birds—
as though in my soul, which is as light as cotton clouds, the feminine alphabet blossoms when the sky fills with dark clouds and then rains,
and to the raindrop’s echo awakes the smell of lost love
or the footsteps of a woman made of lemon
who leaves her secret ink in this poem
2
I never write at coffeehouses or bars
like imposter poets or forgotten romantic people.
Since I was born a stranger
I reproduce from the kohl of poems written by a woman I don't know.
I search for my face in the shade of rivers;
I fly against the wind and sail against the blind tide;
I write on the water, on the papyrus,
on the eyelashes of a woman in the form of a deer or a horse.
I wipe her make-up off her tear,
and follow her desire to dance,
and to hypnotize her braids that sleep on the floor in the cold night.
I lock myself up in a house
haunted by poets’ souls and Facebook ghosts.
3
There is rain inside me and on my poem;
a hand of invisible rain knocks on the door behind me.
Will I pass winter trees like a kiss in the wind?
Or will I put lips on a fluttering woman,
and leave behind me the night opening its door wide to my insomnia
to find myself contained by the one I love?
Distance is like a superstition between my wings, full of ashes,
and the fragrance of her summer bed in the cold winter.
4
We catch the tails of our dream for nothing
but to survive the cold or the night.
Like children, we draw on a deserted wall
a half-sandy rose, a road back home,
a home for winter birds and sunflower farms,
as though we were drunk by the singing of the mountains,
as though we were confused, writing our poems by lips
and embrace our illusions with eyes.
5
I have no time to think of the secret of La Joconde's smile,
or to think of the colours of the miserable Van Gogh,
or to cup with my hands and mouth
the water of an eastern-eyed princess.
Her voice is the shade of a violet. Her navy voice is the secret behind the moaning of Lorca's women in the theatrical singing.
It’s a white flower lost in looking around
and longing to the past.
6
Her napkin does not hide her long braids
or the screams of water at the top of lanterns in the wind.
She is the most beautiful Palestinian.
Her hands are small palm-trees, two butterflies stirring my blood.
Her charms are millions of tiny beaks on the dress.
7
Where is the life ring and where is the dove collar?
There is rain inside me;
where to escape it?
And there is a rose of flame in my ankle.
I don't want the beauty that doesn't wound me just like a melodious singing wounds the night
just like a sigh on the violin or in the dewy air wounds the distance between my blood and the poem
between my mouth and the grape clusters,
between the echo and the sugar-cane longing.
NEMER SAADY - PALESTINE
Translated from the Arabic by Sayed Gouda
OLD RAIN IN A WOMAN’S WINTER
(Excerpts)
1
In my childhood, I befriended distant winters.
They were the back door to Sinbad’s world—a green ship or charming nymph
who wakes me up by passing her smile over my face
and I dream of myself a child chasing birds—
as though in my soul, which is as light as cotton clouds, the feminine alphabet blossoms when the sky fills with dark clouds and then rains,
and to the raindrop’s echo awakes the smell of lost love
or the footsteps of a woman made of lemon
who leaves her secret ink in this poem
2
I never write at coffeehouses or bars
like imposter poets or forgotten romantic people.
Since I was born a stranger
I reproduce from the kohl of poems written by a woman I don't know.
I search for my face in the shade of rivers;
I fly against the wind and sail against the blind tide;
I write on the water, on the papyrus,
on the eyelashes of a woman in the form of a deer or a horse.
I wipe her make-up off her tear,
and follow her desire to dance,
and to hypnotize her braids that sleep on the floor in the cold night.
I lock myself up in a house
haunted by poets’ souls and Facebook ghosts.
3
There is rain inside me and on my poem;
a hand of invisible rain knocks on the door behind me.
Will I pass winter trees like a kiss in the wind?
Or will I put lips on a fluttering woman,
and leave behind me the night opening its door wide to my insomnia
to find myself contained by the one I love?
Distance is like a superstition between my wings, full of ashes,
and the fragrance of her summer bed in the cold winter.
4
We catch the tails of our dream for nothing
but to survive the cold or the night.
Like children, we draw on a deserted wall
a half-sandy rose, a road back home,
a home for winter birds and sunflower farms,
as though we were drunk by the singing of the mountains,
as though we were confused, writing our poems by lips
and embrace our illusions with eyes.
5
I have no time to think of the secret of La Joconde's smile,
or to think of the colours of the miserable Van Gogh,
or to cup with my hands and mouth
the water of an eastern-eyed princess.
Her voice is the shade of a violet. Her navy voice is the secret behind the moaning of Lorca's women in the theatrical singing.
It’s a white flower lost in looking around
and longing to the past.
6
Her napkin does not hide her long braids
or the screams of water at the top of lanterns in the wind.
She is the most beautiful Palestinian.
Her hands are small palm-trees, two butterflies stirring my blood.
Her charms are millions of tiny beaks on the dress.
7
Where is the life ring and where is the dove collar?
There is rain inside me;
where to escape it?
And there is a rose of flame in my ankle.
I don't want the beauty that doesn't wound me just like a melodious singing wounds the night
just like a sigh on the violin or in the dewy air wounds the distance between my blood and the poem
between my mouth and the grape clusters,
between the echo and the sugar-cane longing.
NEMER SAADY - PALESTINE
Translated from the Arabic by Sayed Gouda