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MARAM AL-MASSRI only the sidewalks of hope. I return so you may offer me solace, so you may revive me from my excessive grief. I am a woman who belongs to all men, yet I have no man. I am a woman who belongs to all countries, yet I have no country. A woman of letters and words, of seas and mountains, of pleasure and pain. I return to your arms, your presence, to remind you of me, so that I will remember myself. I am the temple slave, the priests’ servant whose lofty ascensions, dreams, daring and regret, no one forgives. I am the most virtuous of women, giver of pleasure and joy, objector to war and the spilling of blood reader of heart and spirit, teller of tales and stories. As in the past, I sing you. You are no longer mine. As the most precious of gifts I offered you to history. I offered you to sound and music, to poetry and imagination. I offered you to those who loved you as I did, combed your hair as I did planted your trees as I did, sang you as I did. 32 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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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

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MARAM AL-MASSRI

only the sidewalks of hope. I return so you may offer me solace, so you may revive me from my excessive grief.

I am a woman who belongs to all men, yet I have no man. I am a woman who belongs to all countries, yet I have no country. A woman of letters and words, of seas and mountains, of pleasure and pain. I return to your arms, your presence, to remind you of me, so that I will remember myself.

I am the temple slave, the priests’ servant whose lofty ascensions, dreams, daring and regret, no one forgives.

I am the most virtuous of women, giver of pleasure and joy, objector to war and the spilling of blood reader of heart and spirit, teller of tales and stories. As in the past, I sing you.

You are no longer mine. As the most precious of gifts I offered you to history. I offered you to sound and music, to poetry and imagination. I offered you to those who loved you as I did, combed your hair as I did planted your trees as I did, sang you as I did.

32 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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