Saturday, June 11, 2022

GHASSAN ZAQTAN ~

 



Just A Song



Thanks because the river flows

and the villages are fruits on the roads

and the roads are sleepwalking doors

and sleep is the shadow of death

its white land's first

and the dead are with me

strolling in front of my house

unarmed and peaceful

they posed for photos then left 

singly

without an evening

or a calamity


and thanks to the evening.





A Going



Leave us something

we'd be sad if you leave


Leave us, for example,

if you like,

your last photo by the door


our summer trip together


that scent of pine,

your words or your tobacco?


And don't go

alone

and whole

like a sword.





A Horse



And whenever I fall asleep

I find a horse grazing grass

. . .

always

a horse comes to graze the grass

. . .

when I fall asleep.



____________________


Ghassan Zaqtan

Like A Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems

trans. Fady Joudan

Yale 2012