WINDS HOWL THROUGH THE MANSIONS

When we were born
It was our mother 
Who had caskets made for us
And filled them with silver mirrors
Dark blue stones
And fabrics smuggled from Aleppo
Later
She would put us in those caskets
And whisper in our ears
Of roads
And winds
And mansions.
To stop us being lonely in the dark 
She would add our childhood too
To comfort us
With that childhood.
But when we were left
In the long river whose waters streamed
With blood that poured from ritual razor-slashes on our backs
Our mother never wanted such an outrage
And that is why
We kept telling the waters
While she was sleeping
We moved far away.

What’s left from that flight
Everything, everyone is here.
I am here
My brothers and sisters are here with their loss
My mother with her dresses
My brother with his fear of war
My father’s here, but not awake
Around me the world has shrunk
All like a dream
That hurts the longer it lasts

I

Our mother
Stroking her black velvet dress
And veiling her gaze with her hair
Would remember our father:

She said he was on a white mountain
A white mountain getting smaller every spring

II

When our brother
Older than all of us
And afraid of the distant war
Never came home
We too feared the war.
But it wasn’t war that kept him away.
On his way back
He fell asleep with his horse
On the snowy mountain facing our father’s

As our mother’s face grew thinner
And our mother’s shoulders shrank
We wondered which mountain to look at

III

On the long veranda of our house
As her velvet dress grew longer
Her silver hairband heavier
Her silver belt looser
Our mother looked more and more
Like the mountains she watched.
In spring her shell was wearing out
But we couldn’t reach her.
She was dying
Pining away
She never appeared again on the veranda

IV

Lost every winter
Returning in spring
Our mother became a tree

A tattooed oak
Her moaning in our ears

V

Every night
In her black velvet dress
Our mother wandered among the mountains
She was a rootless oak
Silent, now and then weeping

Before we parted
We would gather in our mother’s shadow
And whisper among ourselves
Please God forgive us
Spare our house
Don’t touch our veranda
Only there can we laugh
Only there can we be really silent
Only there can we say what we like
And even if we don’t touch her

We can see our mother from afar

VI

When the cold spell began
Horsemen came to take us away
Horsemen old and strange
Who made us afraid
Snow veiled their eyes.
Without a word
Not looking at our little hands
They came to carry us off to the mansions
Mansions howling with winds

VII

While our mother
Slept peacefully
Between our father and brother
We went far away with the old horsemen.
Our necks ached with looking round
Our eyes narrowed at every bend.
But in vain
We wept in vain
Our sickness was in vain
The horsemen had lost the way

We could never go back

VIII

We were like rocks rolling from the mountains.
We four sisters
In a valley of deepening shadow
Searched for the beds
No longer ours
Searched for days.
With every mountain we crossed
We were so far from each other
So alone with ourselves

IX

No beginning no end
No inside no outside
There we were
In the midst of that world of stone.
As our paths lengthened
Our mother’s tattoos grew darker


X

We would all separate
Where the road split.
But who would be the first
The first to be afraid
Of the way
The night
And the old horseman.
We were in no order
We trembled at every parting of the ways.

I was the last
The narrow road stretched before me
Gathering strength from their grief
I was the traveller

XI

When I came to the first windswept mansion
I slept for days
Among copperpots and kilims.
I could have loved the wind
But for the doors and windows

XII

Ten years I spent with the wind
I was cold in every mansion
There’s no sense in talking I said
If there can’t be a human echo

I was like the silent mansions
With more and more doors

XIII

As the horses grew fewer the silver less
I moved from place to place
As I neared the south
I recognized the voice of the stars

XIV

At night
The lonely foolish moon
Resembled me
There was something strange in my laugh
I was growing up.
Sometimes I thought about love
Lord of the body.
Nights when I couldn’t sleep
I smelt of earth

And on every journey I took
I ignored my tiredness
And daydreamed.
Once when the roads no longer scared me
There came a green-eyed man
Who made fun of poverty
As he grew older
His eyes grew darker.

XV

I had children by that green-eyed man
Two lads
One joined the army, the other had red hair.
And my daughter-in-law,
Slept every night by my red-haired son.
He was always cold
‘How warm your feet are’
He would say
As he pressed closer.
At thirteen the two children
Went to bed whispering together.
One night
Rain entered his sleep.
Leave me your hair
Leave me your hair
Said the rain
And cast a spell on my son in his sleep.
When I climbed the hill
Where he washed his hair with wind
The plain was under water.
Clouds clung to the earth.
I was waiting for a movement
A voice
From the waters hiding my son.
The villagers gathered behind me
With their flaming torches
Reminded me of the darkness.
I couldn’t stay still
But went down to the steaming earth.
The mud grew deeper
I had no power against the dark.
I feared he’d be cold
And his hair dirty again.
When a voice said
‘He is dead’
My son felt cold no longer
He was quieter than rain.
My face streaked with mud and grief
I carried his body,
I carried his hair in my hands.
They put him facedown on the horse
As it climbed the hill
It was secretly shedding light.

XVI

In the bed abandoned by the green-eyed man
I grow old gazing at the ceiling.
Now
My skirts are as long as my mother’s.
My hair longer
Than the red hair of my son.

Nothing lasted long
Journeys
Death
Mansions
Around me nothing remained
But pillars dark with soot

I must gather my strength for the last time
My hair must smell of henna
There must be apple-blossom in the ritual water
That washes my dead body.
And if God can hear me
I ask for a narrow grave
To make me forget
Those spacious mansions
And their howling



SONG OF THE FROGS

Every river mouth is a place for being blessed
a place for waiting
and resting there.

Every river mouth is a place for burying the happy,
for their return to water
and tasting the shadow of water.

In every valley at night
only the temple-bodies change
sunk in water.

The moment too short
like the past a dark abyss.