MARAM AL-MASSRI

Don’t mourn my absence from you, my great distance, my betrayals, my desertion. Here I stand amongst your smells. The reflections in your water, the greenness of your grass, recognize me. Your ground dances to my footfalls.

I am a throneless queen, returning to you so your gentle water and silken air may grow fond of me, so your dogs and cats, your vine leaves, your dust may grow fond of me. I melt into your walls, merging with their surface, so they will tell me what happened. I melt into your walls, into their lime, into their air, so they may quench my yearning.

From you I fled, and to you, today, I return.

So let your water pour onto me, let your perfume diffuse, and as a woman bathing, it will gather me and unite me with its splendour. It will make love to me, making me whole.

Selected from the author’s poetry collection The Return ofWalladah

BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 33