(To the poets as they mend the world’s tattered garment and walk barefoot toward their dreams)
I believed what hides and what appears,
While basil and roses warned me away.
My silver anklet made no echo—
And those who believed in my sorrow turned back.
I am the sobbi ...
(To the poets as they mend the world’s tattered garment and walk barefoot toward their dreams)
I believed what hides and what appears,
While basil and roses warned me away.
My silver anklet made no echo—
And those who believed in my sorrow turned back.
I am the sobbing of the lute in its rawness,
The answer of one betrayed by reply.
I am a neighing—scent of a lily,
A fleeing melody, dice whispering softly.
Epiphanies dressed in anxiety,
Contradictions without end.
I am she who sowed her own serenity,
Yet the field of fear stretches on.
I saw my blood in every direction—
Why then does their southern wind sing?
Why does their backwardness wound me?
I waved, yet the promise was broken.
The rose imagines me a sparrow—
I denied it when the dam overflowed.
But I am the shadow of a citron tree,
A cloud lifted high by longing.
A physician who healed love’s wounded one,
While her own torment still intensifies.
For his sake I prayed a voluntary prayer—
For his sake, let the thunder ignite!
For the one whose poems were crucified—
A dove of verse with no equal—
I sang until language rained,
I wept until the cheek blossomed.
I pulled my soul from their saplings;
Nothing remains in their oases but necessity.
I believed what their sickles revealed,
And forgot the secret of the field, O grandfather.
I opened the door of night, counting
The steps of stars—yet the tally failed.
The distant knight in his pride—
How often distance blamed me in his love!
My language is solitary and singular,
And all my dreams here stand alone.
I bid you farewell—ask your poems
Until the sheath makes peace with my wound.
— Dr. Amina Hazmoune