Selected Poem: Weeping At The Doors Of African Granada
02 August, 2020
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) – Following is a third example of the great Sudanese poet Mustafa Sanad’s poems:
(Sanad (1939-2009), as one critic said, came to poetry and found it the true medium for his soul. His poetic genius had never faded away; never set on the pursuit of nothingness. His spirit was perpetually reaching out to faith and divine attachment).
Weeping At The Doors Of African Granada
From the golden rhythms of a drum, wounding the night,
I am distracted by the river of sun dripping on my lips.
The sheen of the absolute sparks on my eye,
The halls of presence and heaven just a step ahead.
A rhythm, a drum touching the pitchers of emotion,
Bursting across the street amidst the courtyard and the port.
I tell you, the mail of trappings of power are diffused
When it was said, one night, that the
Witness lived in a climate of glory,
Breathing in fragrance of paradise
The mermaids of the seventh sea appear
Under the green moon light,
The wine-jars with a deep yearning stare.
O sultan of ecstasy takes us,
Beyond gain, o sultan,
We would enrich you.
We are the glow of the green coffee bean, the luxurious wax of bees the feathers of ostriches
Folded unto night, focusing their splendor in the whispering colours,
Yet we weight of drachms never changes
When measured with the deception of rashness
And in scales remains the same fluxed star
I tell you, when the summer approaches
And you kin will lay the tables of mercy,
Roaming every land,
Caring for the deprived and the oppressed,
Fearing God, guided by conscience and monotheism.
No one would delay the militancy of the fealty but the helpless.
Your kin spent their lives on prayer mats
Which would soften and purify?
Till light burst out of them
I imagined you collecting whispers in the street
As you walked along, listening to the wisdom of the silent tress
Your kin were the God’s secret
And when they departed, the greatest secret was lost, the scented resonance of Zikkr, the singing
Of Sirah and invocations
O wood of Zikkr, be cocooned in the forgotten nights
Spiral as clouds of smoke,
Stay awake at night,
And be joyful over the fire
I know what the silvery star tell
And what secrets they whisper
I know the Sirah,
All the new
Your kin were in your eyes…they were…
And the Gloth shook.
They twisted the rein of acquisitiveness
Towards the legendary Gutob
Exploring the seas of gold
Where the sun was sleeping in the bosom
Of curling waves and currents,
Departing… and only the wind nail of red death,
Until the night weeps
And the river,
And the forest, and the rain.
*** The poem has been translated from Arabic by Alsir Khidir.
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SK/AS
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