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.