I Saw My Father
I was walking
with my father
through a palm grove,
I was light
like a feather,
my father was light,
he was a cloud
and in the cotton of the cloud
I shut (just as in the dream)
my father's eyes.
London, 7-2-2002
Cloves
Where is the scent of cloves coming from?
her hair?
armpit?
or her dress
thrown on the Tunisian rug?
From the third step in the house?
Layla
makes everything smell of cloves.
Layla
is the orchard when it's wet.
She is
what the orchard breathes
when it's watered at night.
Layla knows now
that I am drunk with the scent of cloves,
she stitches together my clouds
and then scatters them together
in a sky like a sheet
as she clasps me.
Layla
feels that my fingers are numb,
over the dunes she knows
my pulse is hers,
my water is here.
Layla
leaves me sleeping,
rocking between clouds
and cloves.
London, 12-20-2002
Evening By the Lake
Yesterday
by the lake
the rain was warm,
soft,
like your skin after a dip in the sea.
I thought of you a bit
and swore right away:
I have to catch the evening train!
But I'm lazy,
as you know,
so I forgot about the train —
thought of you a lot,
and brought my face closer
to the surface of the water,
to watch how the sky's waters go home,
how this evening is born.
_________________________
translated from the Arabic
by Sinan Antoon and Peter Money
Graywolf Press 2012
Nostalgia, My Enemy
Saadi Youssef
Saadi Youssef was born in 1934 near Basra, Iraq. He has published more than thirty books, and is considered one of the living masters of Arabic poetry.
He lives in London, England.
He lives in London, England.
