☀ Today's Poem: "In the Endless War" Nasser Rabah

Put your hearts under the beds—exhausted neglected shoes
not to be covered by the dust of war:
"and you shall not know."
Put your hearts on the case of an old and broken clock,
so the raid won't shake them:
"and you shall not be sad."
In war the heart expands, becoming a boat for the children, an hour of
clarity, and a sky for writing.
In war the heart chokes, words flee, and along its edge birds melt into
red dew.
It flutters on a tall post—a gasp called the homeland.
In war you leave your heart aside and you salvage a bundle of paper:
your old picture at the school gate, the deed of your demolished home,
your son's birth certificate.
Your heart doesn't matter now. The beloved will await war's end to
ask: did you remember me?
In war no one believes your grief-stricken heart. The rescuers scale
your arms to hold up the roof of sobbing, the planes land their
shadows around you, and your soul flies out like a flock of glass.
You are the time and nothing aims a piece of shrapnel at a soul but
you. Maybe you long to throw your heart at your children like a ball.
Maybe you long to open the window without the shot of a stray
woman. It's alright, it's war, another one and it will pass.
In war time commits suicide.
The day goes by before it's your turn for the bathroom. The hour is
that space between a building embraced by a missile and another
one opening its chest for the last person gasping on
a street about to exit history instantaneously. As for the minute, no
minutes in war, time is rather measured by martyrs:
a hundred and a thousand. In war we sit, no legs to carry us and run.
In war a missile follows you like a loyal dog and a boring neighbor
exchanging greetings and bad jokes.
You etch a tattoo shaped like home into memory.
It was a beautiful home before the arrival of the missile.
In war the children are embarrassed by their tantrums, they grow
before us as if we're meeting old neighbors. How are you, son? I'm still
running father, I'm still running, alone in the madness race.
In war you brought me into the experience. You're the one who
dragged the fairytale's ghouls to my door. You're the one who with
premeditation forgot the barbecue on, and I'm screaming: it's my
heart. You did not hear and you did not forgive. Of love, you left
nothing; of hate, you left nothing for me to finish the poem. Then
you, like a pale cloud of smoke, deceived me into safety.
In war life envies you for life. Gangrene homes, windows of hysteria,
and the eczema of streets, everything in the horrifying scene resents
that you could see it all and not cry.
In war you're not made of flesh and bones, you're someone else in the
same clothes, bloodied, dirty, and lying—testifying that you're not
dead yet.

from the journal MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW

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Forward

During long-distance telecommunication with Mosab Abu Toha, a friend and poet in Gaza, we discussed translating writers from Gaza. This became more urgent during the pandemic, since Gaza was already living through years of lockdowns, to the point of suffocation. Having worked on a collaborative translation, Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Bayrakdar’s extraordinary collection A Dove in Free Flight (UpSet Press, 2021), forming a group made sense and, with Addison Bale, Khaled al-Hilly, Elsa Saade, and Emna Zghal, it came together. Mosab sent us selections. We were struck by the dramatic surrealist/absurdist power of Nasser Rabah and so the translation process began. As Addison Bale writes: "To adapt Nasser Rabah's 'In the Endless War' from Arabic into English, we each looked for ways to address the gaps that naturally form where one language has no shelter for certain specificities of another. 'In the Endless War,' represents our collective effort to approximate Rabah's rich imagination, evoking not only his artistry but also his survival." Nasser joins us in being thrilled to see this poem get such wide circulation and we plan to continue our work on translating more contemporary work from Gaza.

Ammiel Alcalay on "In the Endless War"

"Margaret Atwood Joins Writers Calling for Urgent Action over Missing Rwandan Poet"

"Now more than 100 writers and artists have written to Rwandan president Paul Kagame to express their 'grave concern' about Bahati's life and whereabouts, stating their belief that Bahati's disappearance is 'in relation to his poetry and critical expression on issues affecting Rwandan society.'"

via THE GUARDIAN

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