By Ahmed Shablool Translation by Maha Mostafa Tawfik
I adore your streets, straightforward as a lifetime
I love the cafes…
with tables opening up to the sea's iodine
I sit on the rocks…
That have drunk the humidity of shellmagic
I walk inside all of the months
and the seasons' nectar reverberates inside me
This is January…
which takes away my stranger's frost
and throws it under my clothes
and this, April…
offers my lips the spring of the encounter
and that, August…
clears away all that estrangement in my heart
November, the despot summons my youth
and galloping over my arms
weeks of chrysanthemum
and of jasmine
And in every doorway…
the waves of yearning meow
I love the streets when they intersect with our dreams
And run to the quiescent beach
to freeze its sand
And inflame its groans
your streets now come out between our pain
and spread, spread like floods
killing the darkness inside us
and flowing to their beginning
here… in my eyes
a road leads to its ending
a road flanked by pearls and songs
Oh sea!
grant that poem your vision
I have gained warmth from your frost
from your wrinkled coast, imagination
magic from the rose of the depths,
from the rock of these corals, greenness
and from your bathing salt, food
… I have what you have…
so in streets be a child
singing to the dawn of life
be a father to the orphans
and to those who are lost, a path
and a fetus to barren women
be a city to me
whose streets I intersect
and love the cafes
whose courageous citadel I hug
and walk inside all of the months
without a travel pass.
