{"id":8453,"date":"2022-05-15T09:06:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T07:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=8453"},"modified":"2022-05-15T09:06:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T07:06:23","slug":"three-poems-from-asmaa-azaizeh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/three-poems-from-asmaa-azaizeh\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems from Asmaa Azaizeh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rana Bishara, “The Roadmap for Elimination,” 2006-Ongoing. OCHA maps, dried cacti, black threads, 240x400x400cm (courtesy The Palestine Museum).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/h4>\n

Asmaa Azaizeh<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am but one Word<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look father,
\nlanguage is a lavish bed
\nand I slipped out of life\u2019s vagina
\nonto an old step.
\nSo in which language do I lament your death?<\/p>\n

For twelve whole years
\nAl-Khansa\u2019* stood at the school gate.
\nI gibbered after her,
\nlike a parrot with no tongue
\nand every time, tears welled up in her eyes,
\ncreatures with hardened skins
\nwould walk across the desert of my eyes.<\/p>\n

My mother cuts the mulberry tree
\nevery time it grows,
\nso its roots don\u2019t split the wall.
\nWhich language can split
\nmy sadness over you?<\/p>\n

I picked the words
\noff the tree\u2019s memory
\nof its long-gone limbs,
\nI plowed language
\nfrom the meadow\u2019s fantasy
\nof its absent expanse.<\/p>\n

Cats taught me their elegies
\nover the fetuses
\nthat never formed in their wombs,
\ndeath tied me to the school gate,
\nasking for its share;
\nI am but one word
\nhopping on its short tongue<\/p>\n

I am but a word I can\u2019t make out
\nI will be spoken and be finished<\/p>\n

If lamentation was meowing
\nor bleating
\nI would become it.
\nI would be a long wail
\nthat summons my father
\nor a question that leads me
\nto him\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am but a name that stayed in God\u2019s belly,
\none that he forgot to teach Adam.
\nLet me know of other names
\nso I can say another.<\/p>\n

Look father,
\nlanguage is a lavish bed,
\nAl-Khansa\u2019 sleeps on it like a ripe sphere<\/p>\n

When I stand at its foot,
\nlike an abandoned quarter
\nsilence whistles through me.
\nAnd into my body,
\non the tips of their toes,
\ncome the elegies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translated from the Arabic by Mariam Hijjawi<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0* one of the most influential poets of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods. In her time, the role of a female poet was to write elegies for the dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watch Asmaa Azaizeh recite her poem “Don’t Believe Me if I Talk to You of War” in Arabic:<\/p>\n