Poem of Bread

Poem of Bread

Mahmoud Darwish (to Ibrahim Marzouk) Translated by: Denys Johnson-Davies/The Music of Human Flesh. An inscrutable day . . . The sun coming out lazily to its customs. Mineral ashes fill the east . . . The water in the veins of clouds And in all the pipes of the houses Had dried out An autumn despair in Beirut's life Death stretched out from the palace To the radio to the women selling sex to the vegetables market What has awakened you now At exactly five? Ibrahim was a painter in water-colours A bulwark to wars And lazy when down wakes him But Ibrahim has children of lilac and the sun Who want a loaf and milk Ibrahim was painter and father Was alive from chickens and south and anger And simple as a cross The areas are small A chair in a room. Nothing . . .nothing And painting in water-colours was a homeland And the details are for you. My own face is a telegram Do you read the water that we may agree now? The black blank space has occupied the distances I am the rose that does not beckon The shackle that comes from freedom – chaos Or the impotence that takes the form of homeland – the police Was the homeland An impression or a struggle? And a loss or a salvation An inscrutable day . . . My own face is a telegram, the wheat in the bullet's field What has awakened you now At exactly five? You used to know That Beirut is disparities Is Beirut the fires What has awakened you now At exactly five? They ravish bread and man As from five! Never before did bread have This taste, this blood This whispering touch The cosmic concern This total essence This voice this time This colour this art This human self-abandon. The secret. This magic This unique transfer From the cave of beginnings to guerrilla warfare To tragedy in Beirut Who was dying At exactly five? Ibrahim was mastering the final colour Mastering the secret of the constituents He was a painter and a rebel He was painting a homeland packed with people, willows and War, The sea's waves, workers, vendors and the countryside And he was painting A body packed with the homeland crushed Into the miracle of bread And he was painting The festival of the earth and man; Hot bread of a morning The earth was a loaf The sun a gazelle Ibrahim a people in a loaf And now he is final . . . final At exactly six His blood in his bread His bread in his blood Now At exactly six!   Zajel / An-Najah National University