He longs
He strokes with words the place of longing
keeps long vigils on the peaks of days that collapse in cold sand
Saida over Saida
and sea that tumbles into sea
I remember having loved. . . . . .
I loved until I became love
And who saw my soul over the trees of the place
And who saw my voice across the silence opposite the city?
In silence everything happens
the rose of the volcano
the wind's glory
the talk of the ocean
the neighing of the ages
songs
moans …
They do not hear
because
they do not listen
And you are an erect silence
I am thunder advancing
We meet
only for the trees of madness to sprout between us.
—What is the most beautiful of sounds?
—Fatima talking to herself under the stars
—And the most beautiful of rivers?
—Fatima's loving
There … in the house, on the sidewalk
in the book
or the bottle
I used to lie back and dream of our being two in one name so the gardens
would ignite in bitter sugar, and the bird of the distant sea would fall into
the sea
I would remain standing
and Fatima would still hesitate between entering and not entering a new role.
And we say
Fatima is the oceanic distance of the heart minced in the trap
of rigid boundaries
and we say
Fatima is the solar compass of the face walled in by gloom and chains
And we say
Fatima is the rosy distance of the eye that resides in a springtime that does not return…
That I may see you … I remember the last colors:
the color of the sea
the color of your two hands
the noontime color of the last Saturday
and the last of the words
the lemons leaping from behind the wall
the girls in love with legends
their prince does not come
because they have no windows
pale beneath the weight of dreams and longings.
That I may see you … I draw a white step in the morning
near the lemon lake
in one suburb of our blue oceanic
spirit: Saida…
Do not hear these words because you are
the distant one
the numerous one
Each time I tried to come near and say what I desire
I fell into endless poetry
you are the sky:
blue
high
and you are the sea:
open upon its eternal pulsing
You are your own opposite
insomnia across the day's roof
and a starry pleasure in the night
ambient ecstatic
Your place: a wave in the sea
Your time: a blue rose … that does not come to be
And I. I do not see you…
I see only my continuous collapse in the face of
your forbidden embrace
Will you turn into a god that I may organize in you my
bewilderment, invent rites, suitable pleas, a genuine objection
like a sword with which I would strike the sea's head
then
revolve around the wind…
I know that you are the arboreal
and the oceanic
and the cosmic
all time
You do not hesitate and you do not fear monotony
And I am the dust of the daily event:
my extremities bloodied
my chest could be crushed any minute
Do you hear within you the echo of my leaving you?
Do you hear the echo of my flames as I am writing?
Do not hear these words because this is the impossible language
for the saying of the unsayable
I make you a gift of my low window
I so that you may see how afraid I am to that extent—I am the deep failure
in the face of this sea—
Where will your face be in the evening, so that I may think in your
direction
Stagnant my age is
and free as the fire my spirit
empty the space of school mornings.
Cruelly … the lemon does not flower around me
We do not talk together in silence between one poem and another
Terror gives tongue where there is neither Saida
nor any meeting with you
Once again I declare your great necessity
my dusty solitude
Where will your face be in the evening
so that I may go with it to a moon that has entangled itself
in the sky's adventure?
I give you my window and the map of space
so that you may follow
and you may become weary
my journey to you
Where are you?
Had you forgotten while my heart was suspended in fear?
The soldiers invade my days without let-up, I saw dead doves on their
rifles, I saw like pines my blood yearning for a clear place:
a town or a woman
a snail
or a pavement floating in light
O our doleful blood…
and our crippled stones
How is it that my martyred body did not sprout a garden higher than the
bullets and ignominious helmets? How did this friendly fire pass without
devouring, consuming, destroying the reasons for my death?
Where are you?
Where is your strength that … your eyes
your voice
I do not call you because you are my second name
and my first is the shores…
And I say Fatima is the departure toward the poem when my hand
fell among the chains
my spirit into the dust
my songs into moans.
And I say Fatima is the light spreading in the days … the
prisoner's window
And I say Fatima is the branches
while around us there is the desert…
She comes I say
She will wear Saida and come
to pick me up from among the shreds of poems, cigarette butts,
old and new rubbish…
Fatima who is a neighbor to the destruction of the spirit
always comes
to scatter a song over the silence of the place.
He strokes with words the place of longing
keeps long vigils on the peaks of days that collapse in cold sand
Saida over Saida
and sea that tumbles into sea
I remember having loved. . . . . .
I loved until I became love
And who saw my soul over the trees of the place
And who saw my voice across the silence opposite the city?
In silence everything happens
the rose of the volcano
the wind's glory
the talk of the ocean
the neighing of the ages
songs
moans …
They do not hear
because
they do not listen
And you are an erect silence
I am thunder advancing
We meet
only for the trees of madness to sprout between us.
—What is the most beautiful of sounds?
—Fatima talking to herself under the stars
—And the most beautiful of rivers?
—Fatima's loving
There … in the house, on the sidewalk
in the book
or the bottle
I used to lie back and dream of our being two in one name so the gardens
would ignite in bitter sugar, and the bird of the distant sea would fall into
the sea
I would remain standing
and Fatima would still hesitate between entering and not entering a new role.
And we say
Fatima is the oceanic distance of the heart minced in the trap
of rigid boundaries
and we say
Fatima is the solar compass of the face walled in by gloom and chains
And we say
Fatima is the rosy distance of the eye that resides in a springtime that does not return…
That I may see you … I remember the last colors:
the color of the sea
the color of your two hands
the noontime color of the last Saturday
and the last of the words
the lemons leaping from behind the wall
the girls in love with legends
their prince does not come
because they have no windows
pale beneath the weight of dreams and longings.
That I may see you … I draw a white step in the morning
near the lemon lake
in one suburb of our blue oceanic
spirit: Saida…
Do not hear these words because you are
the distant one
the numerous one
Each time I tried to come near and say what I desire
I fell into endless poetry
you are the sky:
blue
high
and you are the sea:
open upon its eternal pulsing
You are your own opposite
insomnia across the day's roof
and a starry pleasure in the night
ambient ecstatic
Your place: a wave in the sea
Your time: a blue rose … that does not come to be
And I. I do not see you…
I see only my continuous collapse in the face of
your forbidden embrace
Will you turn into a god that I may organize in you my
bewilderment, invent rites, suitable pleas, a genuine objection
like a sword with which I would strike the sea's head
then
revolve around the wind…
I know that you are the arboreal
and the oceanic
and the cosmic
all time
You do not hesitate and you do not fear monotony
And I am the dust of the daily event:
my extremities bloodied
my chest could be crushed any minute
Do you hear within you the echo of my leaving you?
Do you hear the echo of my flames as I am writing?
Do not hear these words because this is the impossible language
for the saying of the unsayable
I make you a gift of my low window
I so that you may see how afraid I am to that extent—I am the deep failure
in the face of this sea—
Where will your face be in the evening, so that I may think in your
direction
Stagnant my age is
and free as the fire my spirit
empty the space of school mornings.
Cruelly … the lemon does not flower around me
We do not talk together in silence between one poem and another
Terror gives tongue where there is neither Saida
nor any meeting with you
Once again I declare your great necessity
my dusty solitude
Where will your face be in the evening
so that I may go with it to a moon that has entangled itself
in the sky's adventure?
I give you my window and the map of space
so that you may follow
and you may become weary
my journey to you
Where are you?
Had you forgotten while my heart was suspended in fear?
The soldiers invade my days without let-up, I saw dead doves on their
rifles, I saw like pines my blood yearning for a clear place:
a town or a woman
a snail
or a pavement floating in light
O our doleful blood…
and our crippled stones
How is it that my martyred body did not sprout a garden higher than the
bullets and ignominious helmets? How did this friendly fire pass without
devouring, consuming, destroying the reasons for my death?
Where are you?
Where is your strength that … your eyes
your voice
I do not call you because you are my second name
and my first is the shores…
And I say Fatima is the departure toward the poem when my hand
fell among the chains
my spirit into the dust
my songs into moans.
And I say Fatima is the light spreading in the days … the
prisoner's window
And I say Fatima is the branches
while around us there is the desert…
She comes I say
She will wear Saida and come
to pick me up from among the shreds of poems, cigarette butts,
old and new rubbish…
Fatima who is a neighbor to the destruction of the spirit
always comes
to scatter a song over the silence of the place.