MARAM AL-MASRI
Born in Syria, long-time exiled in Paris, Maram al-Masri has built up a devoted international following for her poems, which she writes in both Arabic and French. She writes with a clarity and directness that pierces to the heart of things, most especially in poems that remorselessly trace the destruction of her homeland, that inquire with a cool intelligence into the condition of women in our time.
In her collection LE RAPT, which I have translated as THE ABDUCTION she writes of the pain that entered her life when her husband abducted their infant son and took him to grow up in Syria. Years later, a grown man, the son returned to Paris, a virtual stranger, but still bound in the bonds of her heart.
THE ABDUCTION will be published in September 2020 by Southword Editions. Dorgan has also translated BAREFOOT SOULS (Arc, UK) and LIBERTY WALKS NAKED, also from Southword Editions.
11
With these two hands
I have prepared your suitcase for you,
your father has told me
he’s taking you on a short trip
to a city by the sea.
Into your case I have put
your best clothes
because my little one is going for a walk by the sea.
I have also put in
the cakes that you love
and everything you might need
because my little one is going for a walk by the sea.
With these two hands
I have placed you in your stroller
happy
because my little one is going for a walk by the sea.
The evening passed —
and until this day
my little one’s stroller has not come back.
12
O human brothers!
O world!
I had a child
I hid him in my belly
he shared my body
I nourished him with my blood.
I had him share in my dreams
I sang for him, he smiled
I carried him, he stopped crying.
He was torn from my arms,
I ceased to sing.
19
Far from my arms
you sleep in a bed that is not yours,
you no longer see my face
nor my eyes that you would look into with such love.
You can no longer take my hand
as you used to do
before falling asleep.
At night you will wake
and murmur ‘Mother’,
to a woman who is not me.
Far from my eyes
you will grow
you will go to school
and I will not be waiting for you at the gate,
you will fall ill
and I will not be worrying there beside you.
I will recognise neither your face nor your voice
I will not recognise your smell
nor what you wear;
you will rest in my memory
the eighteen month old child
they kidnapped from me.
37
At my door two suitcases
and a young man
tall and thin
dark brown
hesitant, like someone who has lost his way.
At my door, two worn suitcases
like the clothes of a dockworker
in the port of a poor city.
They smell of far-off places
memories
histories,
like a prisoner’s chains.
A young dark brown man
with black hair
his black eyes swimming
in a white sea,
he knocks on the door
of my heart