16. september 2020- Amani AboShabana Egypt

Amani Abo Shabana

Translated from Arabic by Oda M. Winsnes

Remote from existence and fear

The former: frailty that breaches the body and silences each breath.

The latter: an iron fist that once tried to suppress me.

A parched loneliness without affectionate kisses or intimate handshakes

from loved ones who once soothed the heart, inspiring hope.

And a house whose ears have grown deaf to the crumbling world.

Every time I have tried to break open the locks, it repels me with the words of Thabit:

“Death roams the roads of this world

so perhaps steadfast isolation leads to life

or maybe the word you have always kept secret will come to hurt you.”

Inside walls draped in questions

under a roof that scatters its ghosts over me

on a floor I struggle not to drown in

I have wrapped myself in solitude

in letters that profusely serenade love itself

and poetry that sprouts flowers in between the heavy rocks.

And I have sung like a bird who sees in every sky a gift

in every bough support

and in every day a promise to stay.

Out of trust that the reach of the word would not diminish

I clung to it

and I told a story

of emperors, spun it into a night and shackled their necks with it

but I fretted and faltered—over perfidious scissors and a blind hammer

and from a heart so crushed it has become a habit

a fugitive I embraced as salvation

and a freedom I sought from the tyrant’s mouth.

But then, through language, you are as physical as an embrace

by its warmth you alleviate a thousand years of sorrow

and through its voice you sow living hope

and an amazement that no evil may touch.

Knowing that every epidemic comes to an end

I have closed my eyes to despair

For every loss I have fashioned a lung

and for every face a memory.

I have resisted the record of ruin

fixing an eye on the opportunities in life.

Raise it up, and one day I will let you know about the miracle of deliverance.