Sequence to Salah Faik

Sequence to Salah Faik
 

With his solemn, strained face
I hear him talking to me from ages past,
and through the tone of his voice, 
whose outflow you discern easily, 
you can see coral fields, 
winged bulls and rivers glowing with twilight

He told me: My life is flooded with words,
and from a collection of poems he had with him
he drew a basket of fish for a child lost 
by his mother in a protest
It was said that the basket probably
rotted in the sun.

Then he began throwing his words into the river
Deposit by deposit, the words like shells 
shined from the deep sea bottom,
And the wrinkles disappeared from his face

The blood he saves for another night
forgives the lies for which Man was bartered.
I do not call this poetry,
But a field of secrets.

 

Trans. El Habib Louai