Prophecies

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Prophecies

 

Translated by: Nancy Roberts

 

Here I die the death of a Palestinian poetess.

Then I live anew as a Palestinian poetess,

Becoming, with agonizing leisure,

A mystical ode that has traversed nothingness twice over.

 

 

***

 

 On the canvas of the flood

I draw the same picture.

Every time you repair its cracks,

I break it.

 

On the canvas of the flood

I scatter the dust of stars

With which I pass the test of cruelty, the schizophrenia of prophecy,

And I weep.

  

***

  

As though I were hanging from the tip of a straw

Death blows horizontally across my face as is its wont.

I am martyred from that thunderbolt with joy in my heart.

 

 

***

 

I smell you, my wanton shroud.

In you I smell the scent of imprudence.

Out of your back flow fountains of iniquity

Which I obstruct with my mouth.

I open your door

And escape.

  

***

 

I will inherit your heart, O prophet,

I will inherit your heart.

Then you’ll plunge me deep in the earth.

I take root in your perceptions.

Surging madly, I take root in the perceptions of the wind.

I take hold of my inheritance

And I vanish.

  

Apocalypse

 

… I float vertically

… like flecks of light, venturing into the unknown.

The embers die

And my fire dies beneath them.

 

 

 

 

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