A Certain Homeland
And in terms of you, homeland!
***
In an Arab homeland,
we lean on the table of our poverty
we sort out our chaos
we sing praises to the dignity of the famished
When a big rat
took a leap, oh my Lord!
it tore our dreams off our skin
and we returned to our exile singing: Long Live Our Homeland!
In terms of you, homeland!
***
This homeland
keeps a moon in a faraway sky
throws obstacles
in front of doves
forced to migrate from dry oil wells.
But this very same homeland, Fatima
destroys with a scalpel the catheter
in the heart of a maiden
a maiden
who has just died
longing for her beloved
homeless in that desert of this homeland
In terms of you, homeland!
***
Like a teardrop
over sand dunes
under a blistering sky
whenever the wind blows
it rubs the edges of the wound
of an industrious track
of footprints stamping
history on the sand
The Man …
The man
who gifted me
with a flower and a kiss
under a sky so close
you could touch it
left the wind of his departure and moved on
Since that day I have been watering his flower with a teardrop
of mine, still fresh
and green like his heart.
Childhood
Father…
I am your little girl who grew up
in the midst of your holding my hand and me eating your candy
and now my forsaken voice attracts wolves
and cowards from the neighborhood.
Father…
I am all grown up
and no longer am my mother’s little sister
and no longer believe in playing hide and seek
during long winter nights
nor do I believe that my mother protects you with her tender
heart
from the frost of life
from the flame of buried desires.
And I have understood
that I am the daughter of that legitimate heat
combined with that certain frost.
What should I tell you today, Father?
If I came to you
bearing my spilled blood
and that old rag that is my life
after being evacuated from inferior cities?
English translation by Pina Piccolo based on the Italian translation from the original Arabic by Sana Darghmouni.
Mohamed Chouchane, Tunisian poeta born on 23 March 1976. These poems are from his first poetry collection Haldol or “Drops of delirium” published by the Tunisian press Dyar.
Cover image courtesy of Veronica Vannini.
