our faces
and our dreams,
if they were singing
or not,
writing from the left
or the right
or not writing at all,
sleeping in houses
on sidewalks
or in airports,
making love or not making love.
Please don’t ask me, America.
I don’t remember their names
or their birthplaces.
People are grass—
they grow everywhere, America.
Don’t ask me…
I don’t remember
what time it was,
what the weather was like,
which language,
or which flag.
Don’t ask me…
I don’t remember
how long they walked under the sun
or how many died.
I don’t remember
the shapes of the boats
or the number of stops…
How many suitcases they carried
or left behind,
if they came complaining
or without complaint.
Stop your questioning, America,
and offer your hand
to the tired
on the other shore.
Offer it without questions
or waiting lists.
What good is it to gain the whole world
if you lose your soul, America?
Who said that the sky
would lose all of its stars
if night passed without answers?
America, leave your questionnaires to the river
and leave me to my lover.
It has been a long time,
we are two distant, rippling shores
and the river wriggles between us
like a well-cooked fish.
It has been a long time, America,
(longer than the stories of my grandmother
in the evening)
and we are waiting for the signal
to throw our shell in the river.
We know that the river is full
of shells
this last one
wouldn’t matter,
yet it matters to the shell…
Why do you ask all these questions?
You want our fingerprints
in all languages
and I have become old,
older than my father.
He used to tell me in the evenings
when no trains ran:
One day, we will go to America.
One day, we will go
and sing a song,
translated or not translated,
at the Statue of Liberty.
And now, America, now
I come to you without my father.
The dead ripen faster
than Indian figs,
but they never grow older, America.
They come in shifts of shadow and light
in our dreams
and as shooting stars
or curve in rainbows
over the houses we left behind.
They sometimes get angry
if we keep them waiting long…
What time is it now?
I am afraid I will receive
your registered mail, America,
in this hour
which is good for nothing…
So I will toy with the freedom
like teasing a pet cat.
I wouldn’t know what else
to do with it
in this hour
which is good for nothing…
And my sweetheart
there, on the opposite
shore of the river
carries a flower for me.
And I—as you know—
dislike faded flowers.
I do like my sweetheart’s handwriting
shining each day in the mail.
I salvage it from among ad fliers
and a special offer:
“Buy One Get One Free”
and an urgent promotional announcement:
“Win a million dollars
if you subscribe to this magazine!”
and bills to be paid
in monthly installments.
I like my sweetheart’s handwriting,
though it gets shakier every day.
We have a single picture
just one picture, America.
I want it.
I want that moment
(forever out of reach)
in the picture which I know
the circular moment of sky.
Imagine, America,
if one of us drops out of the picture
and leaves the album full
of loneliness,
or if life becomes
a camera
without film.
Imagine, America!
Without a frame,
the night will take us
tomorrow,
darling,
tomorrow
the night
will take us
without a frame.
We will shake the museums
forever from their sleep,
fix our broken clocks
so we’ll tick in the public squares
whenever the train
passes us by.
Tomorrow,
darling,
tomorrow
we will bloom:
two leaves of a tree
we will try not to be
too graceful and green
and in time
we will tumble down like dancers
taken by the wind
to the places whose names
we’ll have forgotten.
We will be glad for the sake of turtles
because they persist along their way…
Tomorrow
darling,
tomorrow,
I’ll look at your eyes
to see your new wrinkles,
the lines of our future dreams.
As you braid my gray hair
under rain
or sun
or moon,
every hair will know
that nothing happens
twice,
every kiss a country
with a history
a geography
and a language
with joy and sadness
with war
and ruins
and holidays
and ticking clocks…
And when the pain in your neck returns, darling,
you will not have time to complain
and won’t be concerned.
The pain will remain inside us
coy as snow that won’t melt.
Tomorrow, darling,
tomorrow,
two rings will jingle
in the wooden box.
They have been shining for a long time
on two trembling hands,
entangled
by the absence.
Tomorrow,
the whiteness will expose
all its colors
as we celebrate the return
of what was lost
or concealed
in the whiteness.
How should I know, America,
which of the colors
was the most joyful
tumultuous
alienated
or assimilated
of them all?
How would I know, America?
Silent Movie
There,
in the sky’s playground,
the gods toss us around like curses
and cast us down from above
without speaking a word.
They watch us,
but don’t hear us.
We are a silent movie
with a bad dir
ector.
No wonder the gods get bored
or switch us off and go to sleep
or forget about us
as we bend like a question mark
on an empty screen
or sneeze as we pray
for the return of the gods
even without any words.
Laheeb and the City
Yes, I love those children, who ran laughing after me. They didn’t believe a thing I said. (I am not a prophet to be denied). They hid in their mother’s dresses and left my dead dog without food, so he does not wag his tail for them. He has not wagged his tail for a long time. And yet I’ve been here for quite some time, and this is my city which no longer wags its tail, and those are the children whom I love but from a distance. I don’t like to see them for more than a few minutes because, after that, they run after me shouting. I don’t know who told whom that what happened did not happen in this or any other place. It refers without watch-hands or numbers to that event which has not happened in this or any other city, neither more, nor less.
The Rocking Chair
When they came,
the aunt was still there
on the rocking chair.
For thirty years
she rocked…
Now
that death has asked for her hand,
she has departed
without a word,
leaving the chair
alone
rocking.
Traces
I wonder if you will guess
how many tremors passed between these walls?
Can you distinguish
between the tremors of fear
from the bombing
and the tremors of kisses?
Between a corner that hid us from the sounds,
and another, where we hid under the photographs?
I wonder if these windows will reflect for you
a few of our waitings,
our comings and goings
between the door and the wall,
our grasping at any rumors or news?
I wonder if you will guess
how many songs were raucously sung
in the topmost room
where wakefulness still remains?
I wonder if you will guess,
when you stumble on this high threshold,
what footsteps have passed here?
Do you know who returned
and who did not return?
I wonder if you will guess
you, who will live in our house,
I wonder if you will guess,
how sometimes
nothing matters.
The Foreigner
l
On a foreign tree
in a foreign field
he threw me a fleeting glance
like a fragment of sky
between skyscrapers.
He is a foreign bird
who abandoned the foreign nest
on the foreign tree
in the foreign field
and left behind, me, the foreigner,
contemplating the tremble of the branch
after the foreign bird
has flown.
2
I don’t know a thing
about my role in this new play
and all my lines
will mean nothing to the audience
since they understand
neither my Aramaic
nor my Arabic.
So I’ll imitate the gestures
of whomever I encounter
on the road
as I guess
their facial expressions
under the foreign sky.
I won’t tremble
more than a baby
leaving the test tube
against his will.
And I won’t cry
despite all these bodies
who greet me
kindly and carelessly.
I have already seen them in a dream.
Like me, they rush to prove
they exist.
They have fingerprints
and memories
and wings
and like me, they sometimes
get stricken with boredom
and the flu.
They too depart
for new places,
though as tourists
and not immigrants.
It is not enough, after all,
to complain of the climate
or of my role
in this new play.
Five Minutes
In five minutes, the world will end…
The owner of the shop next door
has just put up the “Closed” sign
and gone away
as if he knows there is no time left for work.
There are other stores open.
Their owners are still absorbed in work,
but the world will end in…
A group of lively boys
rushes by in the street;
following them, a dog
leading an old man.
The traffic light is red.
The bus driver makes a slight adjustment
to the rearview mirror.
There are still several scenes
that move across the mirror.
The driver pulls away now.
The traffic light is green.
It will keep changing, even after
five minutes!
A young man checks his watch
and waits for the next bus…
In the public park, a couple walks past the statues
and smiles under the sun.
The statues are carefree.
They stare firmly at nothing.
A tourist wanders full of curiosity
and takes pictures of what will soon be absent.
There, in the white hospital,
women bear new babies
too late.
The babies might leave the world
without names.
In one of the wards,
they will be left
forever in test tubes
while the wiggling lab mouse
performing a test
will be free at last
from the big eye that always watches.
The test is not difficult,
but time will run out
before the answer.
And it no longer matters
whether or not you knew.
Smell the roses and keep going.
The rose always knows
that the world will end in five minutes…
The blue shirt in the shop window
seems beautiful on the mannequin.
A young woman points it out to her friend
and they head toward the revolving door
to be swallowed by the towering building…
On the wall, glossy advertisements:
HUGE SALE!
NEW REMEDY FOR WRINKLES!
CIGARETTES DON’T HARM YOUR HEALTH!
but the world will end…
In his walled room
inside the walled palace
inside the walled city,
the tyrant is chewing on an apple
and watching himself on television.
Who would believe that in five minutes
he will relinquish his throne?
Another defendant receives a life sentence.
His attorney wants an appeal
but the world will…
Passengers push through the exit door
others come in through the entrance door.
A woman sets down her suitcase
and waves her hand
(it is not me).
A man waves to her from behind the airport glass
(it is not you).
I don’t know if they met
or if the time…
That university student
prefers to tra
vel by train.
It doesn’t make much difference now.
He has agreed with a friend
to go on a picnic.
I don’t know if the picnic ended before the world
or the world before the picnic!
As for me, I am writing a letter.
I don’t think it will be finished
within five minutes.
TWO
FROM ALMOST MUSIC
(1997)
The Cup
The woman turned the cup upside down
among the letters.
She extinguished the lights except one candle
and placed her finger on the cup
and repeated words like an incantation:
O spirit… If you are present, answer Yes.
And then the cup moved to the right for YES.
The woman said: Are you truly my husband, the martyr?
The cup moved to the right for YES.
She said: Why did you leave me so soon?
The cup moved to the letters—
IT WAS NOT IN MY HANDS.
She said: Why didn’t you escape?
The cup moved to the letters—
I ESCAPED.
She said: Then how were you killed?
The cup moved—FROM BEHIND.
She said: And what will I do now
with all this loneliness?
The cup did not move.
She said: Do you love me?
The cup moved to the right for YES.
She said: Can I make you stay here?
The cup moved to the left for NO.
She said: Can I come with you?
The cup moved to the left.
She said: Will our lives change?
The cup moved to the right.
She said: When?
The cup moved—1996.
She said: Are you at peace?
The cup moved reluctantly to YES.
She said: What should I do?
The cup moved—ESCAPE.
She said: To where?
The cup did not move.
She said: Will we experience more misfortune?
The cup did not move.
She said: What do you want me to do?
The cup moved to a meaningless sentence.
She said: Are you tired of my questions?
The cup moved to the left.
She said: Can I ask more?
The cup did not move.
After a silence, she mumbled:
O spirit… Go in peace.
She turned the cup over
and blew out the candle
and called to her son
who was in the garden catching insects
with a helmet full of holes.
The Resonance
The resonance inside me
finally fell into the water.
On the shore of the world I sit looking at it,
and you watch me from the other shore.
You watch the sound as it fades away.
You watch the ripples as they disappear.
You watch the stars swing down.