الغائب الحاضر-محمود درويش

[م .نبيل زبن]

Psalm Three
On the day when my words
were earth...
I was a friend to stalks of wheat.
***
On the day when my words
were wrath
I was a friend to chains.
***
On the day when my words
were stones
I was a friend to streams.
***
On the day when my words
were a rebellion
I was a friend to earthquakes.
***
On the day when my words
were bitter apples
I was a friend to the optimist.
***
But when my words became
honey...
flies covered
my lips!...
__________

[م .نبيل زبن]

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are* I have a mother
And a house with many windows*
I have brothers* friends*
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave* snatched by sea-gulls*
I have my own view*
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words*
And the bounty of birds*
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
***
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....
__________

[م .نبيل زبن]

Under Siege

Here on the slopes of hills* facing the dusk and the cannon of time
Close to the gardens of broken shadows*
We do what prisoners do*
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope.
***
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent
For we closely watch the hour of victory:
No night in our night lit up by the shelling
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us
In the darkness of cellars.
***
Here there is no "I".
Here Adam remembers the dust of his clay.
***
On the verge of death* he says:
I have no trace left to lose:
Free I am so close to my liberty. My future lies in my own hand.
Soon I shall penetrate my life*
I shall be born free and parentless*
And as my name I shall choose azure letters...
***
You who stand in the doorway* come in*
Drink Arabic coffee with us
And you will sense that you are men like us
You who stand in the doorways of houses
Come out of our morningtimes*
We shall feel reassured to be
Men like you!
***
When the planes disappear* the white* white doves
Fly off and wash the cheeks of heaven
With unbound wings taking radiance back again* taking possession
Of the ether and of play. Higher* higher still* the white* white doves
Fly off. Ah* if only the sky
Were real [a man passing between two bombs said to me].
***
Cypresses behind the soldiers* minarets protecting
The sky from collapse. Behind the hedge of steel
Soldiers piss—under the watchful eye of a tank—
And the autumnal day ends its golden wandering in
A street as wide as a church after Sunday mass...
***
[To a killer] If you had contemplated the victim’s face
And thought it through* you would have remembered your mother in the
Gas chamber* you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle
And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way
to find one’s identity again.
***
The siege is a waiting period
Waiting on the tilted ladder in the middle of the storm.
***
Alone* we are alone as far down as the sediment
Were it not for the visits of the rainbows.
***
We have brothers behind this expanse.
Excellent brothers. They love us. They watch us and weep.
Then* in secret* they tell each other:
"Ah! if this siege had been declared..." They do not finish their sentence:
"Don’t abandon us* don’t leave us."
***
Our losses: between two and eight martyrs each day.
And ten wounded.
And twenty homes.
And fifty olive trees...
Added to this the structural flaw that
Will arrive at the poem* the play* and the unfinished canvas.
***
A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved
For my clothing is drenched with his blood.
***
If you are not rain* my love
Be tree
Sated with fertility* be tree
If you are not tree* my love
Be stone
Saturated with humidity* be stone
If you are not stone* my love
Be moon
In the dream of the beloved woman* be moon
[So spoke a woman
to her son at his funeral]
***
Oh watchmen! Are you not weary
Of lying in wait for the light in our salt
And of the incandescence of the rose in our wound
Are you not weary* oh watchmen?
***
A little of this absolute and blue infinity
Would be enough
To lighten the burden of these times
And to cleanse the mire of this place.
***
It is up to the soul to come down from its mount
And on its silken feet walk
By my side* hand in hand* like two longtime
Friends who share the ancient bread
And the antique glass of wine
May we walk this road together
And then our days will take different directions:
I* beyond nature* which in turn
Will choose to squat on a high-up rock.
***
On my rubble the shadow grows green*
And the wolf is dozing on the skin of my goat
He dreams as I do* as the angel does
That life is here...not over there.
***
In the state of siege* time becomes space
Transfixed in its eternity
In the state of siege* space becomes time
That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow.
***
The martyr encircles me every time I live a new day
And questions me: Where were you? Take every word
You have given me back to the dictionaries
And relieve the sleepers from the echo’s buzz.
***
The martyr enlightens me: beyond the expanse
I did not look
For the virgins of immortality for I love life
On earth* amid fig trees and pines*
But I cannot reach it* and then* too* I took aim at it
With my last possession: the blood in the body of azure.
***
The martyr warned me: Do not believe their ululations
Believe my father when* weeping* he looks at my photograph
How did we trade roles* my son* how did you precede me.
I first* I the first one!
***
The martyr encircles me: my place and my crude furniture are all that I have changed.
I put a gazelle on my bed*
And a crescent of moon on my finger
To appease my sorrow.
***
The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm* in fullest liberty!
***
Resisting means assuring oneself of the heart’s health*
The health of the testicles and of your tenacious disease:
The disease of hope.
***
And in what remains of the dawn* I walk toward my exterior
And in what remains of the night* I hear the sound of footsteps inside me.
***

[م .نبيل زبن]

Without exile* who am I?

Stranger on the bank* like the river . . . tied up to your
name by water. Nothing will bring me back from my free
distance to my palm tree: not peace* nor war. Nothing
will inscribe me in the Book of Testaments. Nothing*
nothing glints off the shore of ebb and flow* between
the Tigris and the Nile. Nothing
gets me off the chariots of Pharaoh. Nothing
carries me for a while* or makes me carry an idea: not
promises* nor nostalgia. What am I to do* then? What
am I to do without exile* without a long night
staring at the water?
Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing takes me away from the butterfly of my dreams
back into my present: not earth* nor fire. What
am I to do* then* without the roses of Samarkand? What
am I to do in a square that burnishes the chanters with
moon-shaped stones? Lighter we both have
become* like our homes in the distant winds. We have
both become friends with the clouds'
strange creatures; outside the reach of the gravity
of the Land of Identity. What are we to do* then . . . What
are we to do without exile* without a long night
staring at the water?
Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing's left of me except for you; nothing's left of you
except for me -- a stranger caressing his lover's thigh: O
my stranger! What are we to do with what's left for us
of the stillness* of the siesta that separates legend from legend?
Nothing will carry us: not the road* nor home.
Was this road the same from the start*
or did our dreams find a mare among the horses
of the Mongols on the hill* and trade us off?
And what are we to do* then?
What
are we to do
without
exile?

[م .نبيل زبن]

Sonnet [ VI ]

A pine tree in your right hand. A willow in your left. This
and slept on my shoulder* near one of your regions* and so what
***
dozes off* and a moon out of your shadows wakes to guard its trees.
a heavenly ground for the salaam of the birds* near echo?
***
Like two rivers in the dreamer's paradise of what you do on the banks
and cry by the river: what isn't feminized . . . is in vain.
A bit of weakness in metaphor is enough for tomorrow.
_________
translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah
Like two rivers in the dreamer's paradise of what you do on the banks
to yourself carried above yourself. The wolf might carry a flute
and cry by the river: what isn't feminized . . . is in vain.
***
A bit of weakness in metaphor is enough for tomorrow.
For the berries to ripen on the fence* and for the sword to break under dew
_________

[م .نبيل زبن]

Two Stranger Birds in Our Feathers My sky is ashen. Scratch my back. And undo
slowly* you stranger* my braids. And tell me
what's on your mind. Tell me what crossed
Youssef's mind. Tell me some simple
talk . . . talk a woman always desires
to be told. I don't want the phrase
complete. Gesture is enough to scatter me in the rise
of butterflies between springheads and the sun. Tell me
I am necessary for you like sleep* and not like nature
filling up with water around you and me. And spread
over me an endless blue wing . . .
My sky is ashen*
as a blackboard is ashen* before
writing on it. So write with my blood's ink anything
that changes it: an utterance . . . two* without
excessive aim at metaphor. And say we are
two stranger birds in Egypt
and in Syria. Say we are two stranger birds
in our feathers. And write my name and yours
beneath the phrase. What time is it now? What color
is my face and yours in new mirrors?
I own nothing for anything to resemble me.
Did the water mistress love you more? Did she seduce you
by the sea rock? Confess now
that you have extended your wilderness twenty years
to stay prisoner in her hands. And tell me
what you think of when the sky is ashen . . .
My sky is ashen.
I resemble what no longer resembles me.
Do you want to return to your exile night
in a mermaid's hair? Or do you want to return
to your home figs? For no honey wounds a stranger
here or there? So what time is it now?
What's the name of this place we're in? And
what's the difference between my sky and your land. Tell me
what Adam said in secret to himself. Was he emancipated
when he remembered. Tell me anything that changes the sky's
ashen color. Tell me some simple
talk* talk a woman desires
to be told every now and then. Say
that two people* like you and me*
can carry all this resemblance between fog
and mirage* then safely return. My sky
is ashen* so what do you think of when the sky
is ashen?

[م .نبيل زبن]

For Ibrahim Marzouk

From early dusk the day was inscrutable
The sun shows up* lazy as usual
A mineral ash* eastward* blocks the horizon. . .
In the veins of clouds
In household pipes
The water was hard. . .
A desperate autumn in the life of Beirut
***
Death spread from the palace
to the radio to the salesman of sex
To the vegetable market
***
What is it wakes you now?
Exactly five o'clock
And thirty people killed
Go back to sleep
It is a time of death and a time of fire
***
Ibrahim was a painter
He painted water
He was a deck for lilies to grow on
And terrible if woken up at dawn
***
But his children were spun of lilac and sunlight
They wanted milk and a loaf of bread
***
Inscrutable day. My face
A telegram made of wheat in a field of bullets
What is it wakes you now
Exactly five o'clock
And thirty people killed
***
Bread never had this taste before
This blood this whispering texture this grand apprehension complete essence this voice this time this colour this art this human energy this secret this magic this unique movement from the cavern of origin to
the gang war to the tragedy of Beirut
***
At exactly five o'clock
Who was dying?
***
Into his hands Ibrahim took the last color
Color of the secrets in the elements
A painter and a rebel he painted
A land teeming with people* oak trees* and war
Ocean waves* working people* street vendors* countryside
***
And he paints
In the miracle of bread
______________
(Written for Ibrahim Marzouk* a painter* killed on the morning of Wednesday* October 8* 1975* as he was buying bread at a Beirut bakery* one of many victims of the Lebanese civil war.)

[م .نبيل زبن]

In Jerusalem

In Jerusalem* and I mean within the ancient walls*
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy* because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk* I fly* I become another*
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone* the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot* like you* to die.
__________

[م .نبيل زبن]

Jameel Bouthaina* and I

We grew older* Jameel Bouthaina and I* each
alone* in two separate eras . . .
It is time that does what sun
and wind do: it polishes us then kills us whenever
the mind bears the heart’s passion* or
whenever the heart reaches its wisdom
***
Jameel! does she grow old* like you* like me*
Bouthaina?
***
She grows old* my friend* outside the heart
in others’ eyes. But inside me
the gazelle bathes in the spring that pours out of her being
***
Is that her* or is that her image?
***
That’s her* my friend. Her flesh* her blood*
and her name. Timeless. She might stop me
tomorrow on her road to her yesterday
***
Did she love you* Jameel? Or did she like being a metaphor
in your songs* a pearl . . . whenever she stared
into your nights and welled up* she rose easterly as a moon
with a heart of stone?
***
It’s love* my friend* our chosen death
one passerby marrying the absolute in another . . .
No end for me* no beginning for me. No
Bouthaina for me or me for Bouthaina. This
is love* my friend. I wish I were
twenty doors younger than myself
***
for the air to be light on me* and for her side-profile
***
at night to be clearer than a mole
above her navel . . .
***
Did you seduce her* Jameel* contrary to what
the narrators have said about you* and did she seduce you?
***
I married her. We shook the heavens and they streamed
milk on our bread. Whenever I came to her my body
bloomed flower by flower* and my tomorrow spilled
its wine drop by drop into her jugs
***
Were you created for her* Jameel*
and will you remain for her?
***
I was ordered and tutored. I have no concern
for my spilled presence like water on her grape
skin. And no concern for the immortality
that will follow us like shepherd dogs.
I am only as Bouthaina created me
***
Would you explain love to me* Jameel*
to remember it one idea at a time?
***
People who know love best are the most perplexed*
you must burn* not to know yourself* but
to illuminate Bouthaina’s night . . .
***
Higher than the night* Jameel flew
and broke his crutches. And leaned into my ear
and whispered: If you see Bouthaina in another
woman* make of death* my friend*
a friend. And glitter over there* in Bouthaina’s
name* like the nûn in rhyme!
_______________________

[ابن البلد]

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are* I have a mother
And a house with many windows*
I have brothers* friends*
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave* snatched by sea-gulls*
I have my own view*
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words*
And the bounty of birds*
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
***
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....
__________



درويش يمتلك لغته الخاصة . و هذا ما حمل اشعاره الى مطارت و مرافيء العالم . الى العديد من اللغات . تغير المكان . و تغيرت اللغة * لكن درويش ما تغير . تغيرت المفردات لكن الاحساس ثابت لم يزل .

كل الشكر ابو اوس