MORE RARE

more rare
than a bird stumbling
on its shadow
than an ant lying in wait for
its prey,

more rare
than a raven
with white wings,

more rare
than a tornado
enveloped in my arms,
than a mutinous stick,
than a docile flame,

more rare
than all that

is to find myself
at peace for a moment
 
 
 
 

MY CITY

on tiptoe
I would roam the world
and keep time
from its lugubrious air
and age
from these licentious years
I want to dig a trench
and hide the earth
from its mutilated heights
and the tree
from its scanty branches

I want to strip the desert
of its obscene skin
and the mirage of its chimera

I want to upset
rocambolesque nations
where amnesiac ardour flourished
and that squander
the plagues
of war

I want the clapped-out nights
of canicular blasts
and days maculated
with valetudinarian moments

I want to go
to the ends of the earth
to find the trace
of its footsteps
riddled by my shadow

I want to go
to the depths of the deep
and collect water in a colander
on the summit of the sun
and protect myself with a sieve

I want to become extravagant
so as to be able to tell you

I love you
 
 
 

AN OFFENDING LOOK

Like a desire interred
on the face of a drowned child
the desire to entrust the bridges
with the tangled banner and the river
with the sturdy calvary

I do not want to speak
of this nightmare
with everything in its place
the river bank and the river
nor of that prisoner
whom I took
for one of my brothers

I say nothing of
the Tigris parched of water
or the Euphrates
without residence permit

I say nothing
of the North abandoned
to its fate
nor of the South delivered
to its destiny

I say nothing of all that
but I speak of Sumer
which had on its conscience
remains of speech
of Babel
that guards in its memory
of the Gods
a devil's remorse

I also speak to you
of me
who casts on this view
of the past
an offending look
 
 
 

WORD

In the word
uttered out of fear
I ask only for my silence
I demand a language to my measure

an eye
as wide as the desert
to speak to you about
what the poem does not say

and to make you see
what God
has never seen
 
 

Translated from the original French by James Kirkup from the poet's collection La Mémoire du Silence, Editions de L'Harmattan, Paris, 1994, and republished here from Banipal No 8.