The boy screams: Stop
He gets up alright and steps forward cautiously like a blind man
[Nothing calls for that]
I whisper:
Only now will I fall on my way to the first street in Asia*
Rafah can’t cope with a new blind man
A strongly featured blackness keeps him awake
A careless woodsman drags him from the haze
behind our ageing galaxy
[In truth,
moving towards the attraction that lies behind appearance has its rewards]
The pavement is ready for the pedestrians
Nothing falls
not even the calls of the sellers circulating in my alley
...but it’s getting nearer
I enter the gate of the haze
And with both hands
The guard of the darkness slaps my ears
The wall
is getting nearer
leaning on my faltering step
and from now on:
how many times will I see you swallow the noon’s darkness and gnaw on
the flaccidity of the night?
And how many times will I see by chance
you sweeping away my fall with that delicacy
you whispering the journey that has been
thrown on the shoulders of time
you pushing my friend the wall
so I enter stretching out my wretched arms hovering amid the uproar.
*Mamarr al-Fātiḥīn: The street that divides the town of Rafah into two halves: one Palestinian and one Egyptian, the gateway to Asia and the dividing line between two continents, where I live.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/israeli-shelling-destroys-poet-othman-husseins-gaza-home
