A stranger at the fountain

A stranger at the fountain

Jabra Ibrahim Jabra A blade of grass split a stone: Is it a cock's crow that resounded, Pierced the darkness, dragged the sun from his hair, and proclaimed The sovereignty of day? it is the miracle of thunder to the waste land, to the parched lips which turned Wide open to the sky, and rain poured! Take the soul, take the body, take the mind, take, take O fingers that have planted their nails as rose bushes in my blood. Your beloved carries the night and the sun together between his palms and from the inside of the earth he comes (like a blade of grass splitting a stone) Winged bedewed, he sprinkles the deserts of your eyes, your hands, O fingers that plant their nails as fountains of love in my blood. The breeze of the road surging at night with eyes, Sheltering strangers and prophets in love with long sidewalks, the breeze of the road that is headless and roaring Descending from the house to the cave and the fountain, Ascending from the house to Golgotha, Üfrom the bed of dreams to the cross  the breeze of the road, carrying a smell of dung and jasmine of painting, death and the last laugh from beginning and end, comes in anger as smooth as a sleeping snake, as a maiden of twenty kissing in the dark a man for the first time, as a virgin with heated breasts Seeking pleasure and resisting it swerving inveigling, Touching whispering burning with the frenzy of flesh and blood, Uttering words that embody the spirit and drip with fragrance on the tongue and the lips. It is the spirit which causes ecstasy and pain. Like a mad man it hits the corridors of the brains and the heart with its hoofs. It is the inevitable lie, the lie whose Truth proceeds from the road beloved by prophets and fugitives. The spirit is the road, the breeze is its whisper. The touch of the loving breasts in the long heat of night. The end of the trip is its beginning, Let the clocks of the city strike in vain! Neither night now possesses its bats Nor morning threatens with coming death. On the mountain, where the threatening Piece of Wood was set up, The rock of water has exploded in cataracts And the wild horses of night neighed At the edge of the cool fountain. A stranger in whose face are two dimples, in Whose hair is the taste of threshing-floors, and in whose mouth is the summer of vineyards, Began dipping his feet in the flood Shouting: whose are these horses of night? Whose except the Stranger’s who turned time into circles And kissed the crown of thorns until The horses, the night and all the clocks of the city went mad. (Al-Madar al-Mughlaq, Beirut 1964.)