I Remember Elsayyab

I remember Elsayyab, screaming uselessly in the Gulf:

'Iraq, Iraq, there's only Iraq…'

Only an echo answered.

I remember Elsayyab, in the Sumerian vastness

the feminine overcame the infertility of mist

and bequeathed earth and exile together.

I remember Elsayyab, poetry is born in Iraq,

so be an Iraqi, my friend, if you want

to be a poet.

I remember Elsayyab, he didn't find life

as he imagined it between the Tigris and

the Euphrates, didn't contemplate the plant of immortality

like Gilgamesh, didn't think of resurrection…

I remember Elsayyab, taking laws from Hammurabi

to redeem a wrongful act and walking like a mystic

to his grave.

I remember Elsayyab, touched by fever

and hallucinating: 'My brothers prepared supper

for Hulagu's army, there were only my brothers

for servants…

'I remember Elsayyab, we didn't dream of nourishment

too good for a bee, didn't dream of more than two small hands

to shake our absence.

I remember Elsayyab, dead blacksmiths rose up from their graves

to make our chains.

I remember Elsayyab, poetry is an experiment

and an exile - twins -

we didn't dream of life other than it is, dreamed only

of dying our own way.

'Iraq, Iraq, there is only Iraq…'

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#poetry #mahmouddarwish #blog #sura