سفيرة الجنوب
01-08-2011, 02:52 PM
Poem Title : 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!
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!