Selected Poems from Rose Shomali Musleh
Translated by Dr Basem Ra’ad
1. Longings after Beginnings
It stays with me- this longing after beginnings.
So I leave a land of familiar features
For a space unturned by the arms of the plough.
What is it we fear in our dream that was ours?
Do we lose the reason for our being
When we reach shores of safety
And harvest dreams as if our own fruit?
This harvest is my harvest, I often said-
Then I departed,
Leaving for whoever succeeds me
The richness of my harvest, my journey’s end.
Soon as I settle again to plough my plot,
I renew the beginning.
And what a harvest comes after.
I know it is not possible, every time,
To reach a beginning.
But when I find it again it lifts me,
As a cloud carried by the wind:
I relinquish myself to wonder-
To learn from what it writes
Has some meaning for living.
This longing for beginnings renews me.
It keeps me childlike-all life.
2. Metamorphosis
Inside of me everything takes on the next color.
I see a future vision in its mirror.
“A river has another path than its own.”
Everything readies for the launch,
awaits its zero hour.
More and more ink is needed
to raise the height
that sees the butterfly to flight.
More and more paper is needed
to complete the metamorphosis
that breaks the caterpillar walls.
It will then soar with self-made wings
far, far –
where space is space.
3. Distances
As close as a face in a mirror:
As far as a face in a mirror.
The river is the same:
you are on the other bank.
4. My dream breaks
I shatter.
I feel life’s vertigo:
I am intoxicated by yesterday.
I strain all time:
I am dried out.
I am shocked by truth:
I am afflicted with wisdom.
I hold my pen:
I am saved from drowning.
5. A Moment before Death
Had I a choice to start at the beginning
Which river would I cross?
Which season would I repeat?
Does death really worry me?
Or is there within me a stubborn child still?
I did not fear my ship gone astray,
But I hate death in a faraway land.
6. What Evil Takes
As Mephistopheles waited at her gate
she cried and said:
let me die in the heart of my homeland:
they can take all they want in return.
Mephistopheles allowed his new guest
this wish before death.
Just when her dream came true
he showed at the gate of the house
laughing.
He took away all she loved.
7. Shout at Death
At a moment before death
before life expires
wishes awaken.
Strings of farewell extend
beyond life
before life
touch the faces of loved ones who pass –
gone and returned, returned and gone
gone and gone,
only memories behind.
At a moment before death,
before life expires,
love in us rebels:
it sends a shout at death,
wears a life jacket.
A moment before life ends
poetry explodes
rebels at defeat
rebels at exile
rebels at silence:
I sing full voiced
of love and life.
8. A Little Love
Only a drop of love I wish out of life
to oil the gates of autumn,
to enter them without noise.
A little love gladdens the heart:
It softens the season of farewell
for the spring that will not return.
A little of love
that scents this autumn with springs of basil
would make the crossing at the end
little more the crossing at the end
little more than a draught that intoxicates.
It lights in us the memory.
Would that memory forget us
so we can forget our infinite sadness.
In the autumn of the years,
our vistas lack the joy:
The anemone bleaches its color,
the finch misses its tune.
Things pale about us,
the drops of rain annoy us.
But the cloud wanders:
It knows no country and fears no exile.
We want nothing more in life
than a space before the sunset
to bid farewell to all those we lost
in stopping places along the journey.
I search in the depth of your eyes
for a safe harbor to return.
When your sadness overflows the banks,
it shames me of my sadness,
so I weep for you.
9. O Goddess of Poetry, Rescue Me
I look up to my father in the heavens
and find a moon paled sick with the horrors it sees.
From Jenin to Rafah
we write our wounds
we read our wounds
we distill pain into haunted ink.
Ah, mother sickened with blackness:
How could I write your poem
without missing a drop of the pain?
Goddess of poetry!
Give me a touch of your magic
to write the rune of a woman,
having known the meaning of conception,
before the moment of maturation,
sees the gongs of death silence the beats of life.
Rescue me, O Goddess of Poetry.
10. Lake or Woman
Silence swims inside her,
another silence outside.
Her autumn tends the wound,
her roots hug the expanse.
She carries traces of its dampness.
Would she were a swan dotting the blue
that dips its head as it glides
and does not lose the way.
How she adores the river,
but the river searches for open depths and distances.
11. Cloud or Woman
So tender
she breaks a rib whenever she walks.
So hard
she keeps walking
when the last rib breaks.
She says:
let me undo this breast and go on naked.
12. Hope
The desert may overwhelm us.
Yet always there is an oasis,
a digression,
to scoop words from the sand.
13. Cycle Dream
I dream every night
I am on the way home.
I take out the key from my heart’s fold.
I touch the keyhole.
The key turns.
Just as I enter
I wake up.
14. Tale of a Different Loom
The scent of earth released on first rain
declares the beginning of the narrative.
My mother does not say it in words:
She writes yarns with threads of silk and wool.
With magic in her hands,
out of things of the day
she crafts tales of the night,
weaves them into spreads of warmth and tenderness.
My mother is not skilled in coining words.
Her tales are threads of yearning
changing kisses with the night.
On the touch of her prosaic hand,
the tale grows with the night and reaches maturation.
So the work is done.
Written by Rose Shomali Musleh