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Damascus, What Are You Doing to Me?
1 My voice rings out, this time, from Damascus It rings out from the house of my mother and father In Sham. The geography of my body changes. The cells of my blood become green. My alphabet is green. In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth A new voice emerges for my voice And my fingers Become a tribe 2 I return to Damascus Riding on the backs of clouds Riding the two most beautiful horses in the world The horse of passion. The horse of poetry. I return after sixty years To search for my umbilical cord, For the Damascene barber who circumcised me, For the midwife who tossed me in the basin under the bed And received a gold lira from my father, She left our house On that day in March of 1923 Her hands stained with the blood of the poem… 3 I return to the womb in which I was formed . . . To the first book I read in it . . . To the first woman who taught me The geography of love . . . And the geography of women . . . 4 I return After my limbs have been strewn across all the continents And my cough has been scattered in all the hotels After my mother’s sheets scented with laurel soap I have found no other bed to sleep on . . . And after the “bride” of oil and thyme That she would roll up for me No longer does any other "bride" in the world please me And after the quince jam she would make with her own hands I am no longer enthusiastic about breakfast in the morning And after the blackberry drink that she would make No other wine intoxicates me . . . 5 I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque And greet everyone in it Corner to . . . corner Tile to . . . tile Dove to . . . dove I wander in the gardens of Kufi script And pluck beautiful flowers of God’s words And hear with my eye the voice of the mosaics And the music of agate prayer beads A state of revelation and rapture overtakes me, So I climb the steps of the first minaret that encounters me Calling: “Come to the jasmine” “Come to the jasmine” 6 Returning to you Stained by the rains of my longing Returning to fill my pockets With nuts, green plums, and green almonds Returning to my oyster shell Returning to my birth bed For the fountains of Versailles Are no compensation for the Fountain Café And Les Halles in Paris Is no compensation for the Friday market And Buckingham Palace in London Is no compensation for Azem Palace And the pigeons of San Marco in Venice Are no more blessed than the doves in the Umayyad Mosque And Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides Is no more glorious than the tomb of Salah al-Din Al-Ayyubi… 7 I wander in the narrow alleys of Damascus. Behind the windows, honeyed eyes awake And greet me . . . The stars wear their gold bracelets And greet me And the pigeons alight from their towers And greet me And the clean Shami cats come out Who were born with us . . . Grew up with us . . . And married with us . . . To greet me . . . 8 I immerse myself in the Buzurriya Souq Set a sail in a cloud of spices Clouds of cloves And cinnamon . . . And camomile . . . I perform ablutions in rose water once. And in the water of passion many times . . . And I forget—while in the Souq al-‘Attarine— All the concoctions of Nina Ricci . . . And Coco Chanel . . . What are you doing to me Damascus? How have you changed my culture? My aesthetic taste? For I have been made to forget the ringing of cups of licorice The piano concerto of Rachmaninoff . . . How do the gardens of Sham transform me? For I have become the first conductor in the world That leads an orchestra from a willow tree!! 9 I have come to you . . . From the history of the Damascene rose That condenses the history of perfume . . . From the memory of al-Mutanabbi That condenses the history of poetry . . . I have come to you . . . From the blossoms of bitter orange . . . And the dahlia . . . And the narcissus . . . And the "nice boy" . . . That first taught me drawing . . . I have come to you . . . From the laughter of Shami women That first taught me music . . . And the beginning of adolesence From the spouts of our alley That first taught me crying And from my mother’s prayer rug That first taught me The path to God . . . 10 I open the drawers of memory One . . . then another I remember my father . . . Coming out of his workshop on Mu’awiya Alley I remember the horse-drawn carts . . . And the sellers of prickly pears . . . And the cafés of al-Rubwa That nearly—after five flasks of ‘araq— Fall into the river I remember the colored towels As they dance on the door of Hammam al-Khayyatin As if they were celebrating their national holiday. I remember the Damascene houses With their copper doorknobs And their ceilings decorated with glazed tiles And their interior courtyards That remind you of descriptions of heaven . . . 11 The Damascene House Is beyond the architectural text The design of our homes . . . Is based on an emotional foundation For every house leans . . . on the hip of another And every balcony . . . Extends its hand to another facing it Damascene houses are loving houses . . . They greet one another in the morning . . . And exchange visits . . . Secretly—at night . . . 12 When I was a diplomat in Britain Thirty years ago My mother would send letters at the beginning of Spring Inside each letter . . . A bundle of tarragon . . . And when the English suspected my letters They took them to the laboratory And turned them over to Scotland Yard And explosives experts. And when they grew weary of me . . . and my tarragon They would ask: Tell us, by god . . . What is the name of this magical herb that has made us dizzy? Is it a talisman? Medicine? A secret code? What is it called in English? I said to them: It’s difficult for me to explain… For tarragon is a language that only the gardens of Sham speak It is our sacred herb . . . Our perfumed eloquence And if your great poet Shakespeare had known of tarragon His plays would have been better . . . In brief . . . My mother is a wonderful woman . . . she loves me greatly . . . And whenever she missed me She would send me a bunch of tarragon . . . Because for her, tarragon is the emotional equivalent To the words: my darling . . . And when the English didn’t understand one word of my poetic argument . . . They gave me back my tarragon and closed the investigation . . . 13 From Khan Asad Basha Abu Khalil al-Qabbani emerges . . . In his damask robe . . . And his brocaded turban . . . And his eyes haunted with questions . . . Like Hamlet’s He attempts to present an avant-garde play But they demand Karagoz’s tent . . . He tries to present a text from Shakespeare They ask him about the news of al-Zir . . . He tries to find a single female voice To sing with him . . . “Oh That of Sham” They load up their Ottoman rifles, And fire into every rose tree That sings professionally . . . He tries to find a single woman To repeat after him: “Oh bird of birds, oh dove” They unsheathe their knives And slaughter all the descendents of doves . . . And all the descendents of women . . . After a hundred years . . . Damascus apologized to Abu Khalil al-Qabbani And they erected a magnificent theater in his name. 14 I put on the jubbah of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi I descend from the peak of Mt. Qassiun Carrying for the children of the city . . . Peaches Pomegranates And sesame halawa . . . And for its women . . . Necklaces of turquoise . . . And poems of love . . . I enter . . . A long tunnel of sparrows Gillyflowers . . . Hibiscus . . . Clustered jasmine . . . And I enter the questions of perfume . . . And my schoolbag is lost from me And the copper lunch case . . . In which I used to carry my food . . . And the blue beads That my mother used to hang on my chest So People of Sham He among you who finds me . . . let him return me to Umm Mu’ataz And God’s reward will be his I am your green sparrow . . . People of Sham So he among you who finds me . . . let him feed me a grain of wheat . . . I am your Damascene rose . . . People of Sham So he among you who finds me . . . let him place me in the first vase . . . I am your mad poet . . . People of Sham So he among you who sees me . . . let him take a souvenir photograph of me Before I recover from my enchanting insanity . . . I am your fugitive moon . . . People of Sham So he among you who sees me . . . Let him donate to me a bed . . . and a wool blanket . . . Because I haven’t slept for centuries
