Salim Barakat

DILANA AND DIRAM   

PART ONE

A wild goat on the hill

and silence that lifts its horns high as the mountain goat.

Do not come closer then, you who guide, !and do not retreat:

yours is the place from which roots detect roots and. the earth, views its heritage.

A wild goat on the hill, ,and a solid silence that lifts its horns, high as the mountain goat.

Look at her, Diram, she is the harvest of golden baskets in the gleam of your blood. Watch how she sleeps clinging to your side, her breath cascading flame by flame into the vast terrain of your...manhood. Do you remember, Diram, the moment you came to her, meek and gentle, wrapped by fields, your steps singing of the day and the quiet frenzy of corn stalks? Do you remember the evening that shimmered in your eyes, that first evening you took hold, with kisses, of creation's treasures and uncovered a strange stream-bed beneath the rock of the soul? Take your time, Diram, take your time as you magically stroke the nests of her heart-Dilana's heart suspended like a wound full of life.

Look at him, Dilana, see how he clasps his hands 'round thunder bolts and scatters winds across your bed. Look how he dangles from your rapid breath like fruit; he traps waterborne plants as though boasting about you to the lances of water. Look how he encircles the waters like land, enclosing your pulse that rises up with boats and foam . . . but when he lays open his nets, at day's end, and cranes and planets scatter forth, leave him sleeping in his prophecies. Leave him, Dilana, for all that he holds of the earth is a fistful of baked brick, and all he can see are the wings of your breasts spreading across the earth, the shadow of evening and manhood.

Then wake him, Dilana, wake him from his sleep gilded with the sweetness of a thousand drunken hearts, awaken the morning with him, so they may rise to you together, dusted with desire and joy, for he is the last one whom you will see so delirious, blowing into giddy trumpets, or, like a cup-bearer, filling the cups of the drowned with heroism, standing in the same ancient path swept by roots and the joy of wild things in each other. He is the last whom you will see approaching like a storm-signal before the wind dons its violent helmet and rips at the tablecloth, scattering vessels across the marble of souls. Wake him, wake him up, Dilana.

Wake her up, Diram, awaken the butterfly of mystery and its golden drone . . . Wake Dilana up, and the house with her, stone by stone, then awaken the yard that encloses the house, and awaken the hedge. When you have finished with all that, awaken the morning that sleeps by the hedge, and say, Come Dilana, let us witness the bewildered radiance of the earth as she sheds power and splendor over our human shield, and after that let us reveal our breasts so we may reach the fields, trembling from the sweetness of the blade sinking to where sesame and saffron flow, as though we were trying, together, to be wounds beyond which there are no wounds . . . Come, Diram, wake her up.

Wake her up, Diram, wake up Dilana, the fullness of foam, and spread your ,ails when she stirs from the caresses of your morning-fresh energy, for You approach her dressed only in mist. Wake her up, wake her up, Diram. Wake him up . . - Wake her up . . .

I did not wish to wake up the earth that morning.

I did not wish the earth to wake me up.

Everything passes when the signs are complete, and whoever clings onto a sigh is carried off by it: that is how they went, Dilana and Diram, so I did lot wish, that morning, to awaken the earth, and she did not wish to awaken me.

I was in full view of them, a youth and a woman,

and I was their silent guide, opening before them pathways of dew. When they wandered amidst cymbals of blossom, I transformed the vivid blossoms into the celebration of wanderer with wanderer.

But, as a guide who led a pair of lovers only to a bitter brevity, I said, let me tell what happened.

I said I would begin with the sorrowful, that I might tunnel forward to the sweet. As I speak, various others recount with me: the roots of bulbs and jute and golden blood that braided together in celebrant winds.

I thought I would start from where dust encircled the baskets of Dilana and Diram, they were returning from the truffle harvest, a dusting of grain pollen on their heads, as if they had bathed in blossoms and the blossoms had coated them with their sensual play. As though they had left behind some kisses in the grass, so the grass bounded forth to them with what they had forgotten.

They were returning, and the earth was returning from its daily harvest with a thousand stalks of corn and a thousand flames, a thousand raids in which the brave open their fates to invisible waves, a thousand cracked shields, a thousand thunderbolts drenched with kisses and twenty men who aimed arrows of ash at Dilana and Diram, so they bowed down to the silence that scatters fountains in its wake, and ravages carnations.

Ah, Diram, you were a ' youth fleeing the plains wrapped up with the thunderbolts of the fields.

Ah, Dilana, you were a woman fleeing her spouse, racing toward a choice and a choiceless youth.

A youth and a woman bonded together in purpose, who kindled the delirium of ignorance around them.

Each of them a child. A youth and a woman: two children. And 1, the mute guide, leading them amidst peach trees, and the beaks of drunken clouds.

I was not an ordinary guide. I went wandering between their eyelashes, seeing what they saw praising as they praised, the splendor of kings who spun cities into an uproar like packs of greyhounds, and emerged looking for their people.

Allow me, Diram, I shall clothe you in a prince's mantle.

Allow me, Dilana, I shall clothe you in the cape of a princess and I will kneel, exposing my whole breast to the blows of the priestly river.

Ali, anger, did I have to lead a fleeing youth and a fleeing woman?

(With the fortitude of moles and the earned wages of a youth, Diram began. He would lift books from their secret places into the memory of the dead, and bundle up sands and arguments for word-peddlers, then return at the end of the day, to sit on the roof of his building, sipping his evening tea and the fragrance of a woman who had not yet emerged from her clay. But he met Dilana, after two hundred suns followed one another in an emptiness punctuated by iron and noise. And he cried.)

(Dilana was waiting too, after forty cycles of corn.

And she was hoping to make of her two daughters a reason for blood's submission to blood.)

 

FIRST PRELUDE

They would run together around the mast of the city, muffling themselves with winter's messages, joyous as seagulls, panting like ravens. Dilana would try to catch hold of his youthful lightning and he reached out for her tender mist. When they tired, they would sit together near the city's flagpole, she receding a little, like a wave, and he receding, wavelike also, leaving their surf-

spun shirts strung across ropes of rain, with the dangling sash of an unfinished kingdom.

(I remember how helmets surprised one another after two celebrative pages of Diram and Dilana's joy had been turned. I remember the pages ended, and the city began. I remember that twenty stabs were thrust and two lovers were dispersed from the banks of fountains. Diram was not killed, nor was Dilana; instead they returned, each to their evenings. I remember: Diram smashed the vessels of a woman who let down her heart after the siege.

I remember: Dilana shut her vision on the image of the youth, and bowed to the carriers of middle-age after the siege, So I drank the last lightning down myself, and awaited more ruin.)

No lover remains.

All of them have departed.

All of them rolled the great pearl of the soul to the slopes and departed.

Each of them awoke, one morning, found his heart still sleeping, bowed, and departed.

Sighs! They create their own waves and break the masts.

So sleep then, heart, sleep a little. All you are is a wine jug where wanderers take turns drinking, where invaders flirt with conquests, then forget them.

Sleep then, sleep.

(Dilana has not fallen asleep yet.

Her husband has gone to sleep and she has not.

Half of her is for Diram, and half for her two daughters.

Half of her is for a home, and half for the open wild.

It is the uncertainty of all ages and places.

It is the uncertainty of the silent song the body sings between the lover and the husband.

It is the uncertainty of the entire choice,

the uncertainty of the blow that explodes what

is to come, or erases what has passed.

Ah, . . - half of her lies awake there, and half of her lies awake here.)

Sleep then,

sleep, delirious heart.

(Diram has not gone to sleep yet.

His new woman is sleeping, and he has not yet slept.

The city and ruins have gone to sleep, and he has not slept yet.

The bridges have gone to sleep and he has not slept yet. The waters and clouds and spirits have gone to sleep but he has not slept yet . . .

All of him is for Dilana,

all of him for a bewilderment that joins no one to anyone.

Ah, he was given no choice in the matter:

the sedate middle-aged men came and decreed that Dilana should remain for her spouse.)

Sleep then,

sleep, delirious one,

for your heart is simply a heart, and you were only the guide for two lovers who did not complete the plundering of their souls.

 

DILANA AND DIRAM / PART TWO

He is what I have described, what I have told the earth and the air: a youth, delicate as an evening which women set aside for their own celebrations. A shy youth, streams washing the silt of his depths down to the sea, where the outcroppings of rock set traps for him. He was alarmed, at first, by the city of tumultuous stone, the rooms of stone with brazenly decorated windows, like the priestess of war. But he adopted the guile of the ruler, copied the temper of bridges, and blessed the unsmiling crowds. That truce gave him no real peace, for the fields which haunted him with their fern thickets continued to whistle in his ears, and northern mornings continued to whet, near the city, his scythes of longing. Ah, Diram, you used to say: "The comedy begins with a kiss,

With a kiss the entire war begins,

With a light kiss which intensifies little by little wing huge. With a gentle kiss filled with the tumult of man and woman, the tumult of two bodies hollowing Out of the muscle's wave to hide their limbs each in the other's living cemetery.

This is how the dialogue of a man and a woman is completed, the dialogue of their guts;

When the heir to the light kiss awakens, to inherit all the anger, and all the comedy."

You used to say that, Diram, and blow the sweet trumpet of the fields,

delicate as the evening which women reserve for their celebrations. But you succumbed to desolation at last, to hear the farthest trumpet blowing, the

trumpet that only awakens the ruins.

 

DILANA

Each day she opens the same door to her two daughters.

Each day she lays the same table for her two daughters.

Every day she watches the same spouse.

For twenty years

she has observed the same spouse.

Her future is what has passed: her future repeats the same movements,

the same distractedness.

She is what I have told you. She is what I told the earth and the air, and she has fallen into loneliness again, hearing the most distant trumpet, the trumpet of her years that stand, like a lynx, on a hill with nothing left to be hunted.

 

THE WILD GOAT

Sage of the tribe, nay, most resplendent of sages, raises the animal's sign and its vows to the king of the wild, ascending and descending that rocky slope overlooking the canopies of sunset, where thunderbolts retire to bed, leaving their fires outside to flash in the shadows, the fitful shadows, and in the air their royal recklessness.

The silent sage of the tribe raises his horns, high, above mountain mist, as one who guides the wandering stone.

 

THE COWS OF HEAVEN

Luminous cows, mysterious cows, with inscrutable hides, enter the celestial passage, one after the other, graceful, jingling into the vast stretching emptiness. From comet to comet, planet to planet, space to space, their tails move like hands shooing the bees of falsehood from the honey of the gods.

Cows enter the heavenly passageway,

and from beyond their horns the evening assumes the rites of thunder and virility.

succumbed to desolation at last, to hear the farthest trumpet blowing, the

trumpet that only awakens the ruins.

 

DILANA

Each day she opens the same door to her two daughters.

Each day she lays the same table for her two daughters.

Every day she watches the same spouse.

For twenty years

she has observed the same spouse.

Her future is what has passed: her future repeats the same movements,

the same distractedness.

She is what I have told you. She is what I told the earth and the air, and she has fallen into loneliness again, hearing the most distant trumpet, the trumpet of her years that stand, like a lynx, on a hill with nothing left to be hunted.

Translated by Lena jayyusi and Naomi Sbibab Nye

 

THE WILD GOAT

Sage of the tribe, nay, most resplendent of sages, raises the animal's sign and its vows to the king of the wild, ascending and descending that rocky slope overlooking the canopies of sunset, where thunderbolts retire to bed, leaving their fires outside to flash in the shadows, the fitful shadows, and in the air their royal recklessness.

The silent sage of the tribe raises his horns, high, above mountain mist, as one who guides the wandering stone.

 

THE COWS OF HEAVEN

Luminous cows, mysterious cows, with inscrutable hides, enter the celestial passage, one after the other, graceful, jingling into the vast stretching emptiness. From comet to comet, planet to planet, space to space, their tails move like hands shooing the bees of falsehood from the honey of the gods.

Cows enter the heavenly passageway,

and from beyond their horns the evening assumes the rites of thunder and virility.

 

THE GREYHOUND

They gamble on you,

and it is not your fate, graceful one, to rest calmly at all. You will run long, very long.

You will run from thicket to thicket, lake to lake,

carrying slain game in your mouth, across the water, rousing the ducks and hens of the field within range of the hunters' arrows.

Pampered, favored with choicest food . . .

But one day, in pity, they will take aim at you-that day when your lungs, which once sniffed out the hiding places of trembling game, or your slender legs, will let you down.

For a long time after you, flocks of birds shall live on in fields untried by masters following their dogs.

 

THE HOOPOE BIRD

It is as if the birds have segregated you,

as though you woke one morning, felt estranged from the kingdom, and retired from it, fleeing from spring to spring, a coxcomb your only mark of royalty, and a middle-aged temperament.

Still, you are a living observatory;

the hard land beneath your wings hears the drums of water.

 

THE FLAMINGO

The enclosed, self-possessed one spreads his wings across the lake, beak pointing downwards, eyes searching out the bright movement of water serpents and green flies.

How he wishes for his victims to be sad when he pounces on them from above, but they are mute and merry, merry in the mirthful water:

This is what makes him sad,

what saddens the mute flamingo, as he continues to pounce, generation after generation, upon the mute gaiety of the water.

 

THE SQUIRREL

The first hazelnut trundles down from above.

The second hazelnut, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth, trundle down from above.

 

The hazelnuts trundle down, nut by nut, to the ground beneath the dumb tree, the tree whose memory the squirrel collects nut by nut, rolling it into his den.

Each year a memory of hazelnuts rolls, nut by nut, into the den of the prince with the merry tall, and the tree forgets.

_____________________________

 

Translated by Lena jayyusi and Naomi Shihab Nye

 

- Dilana and Diram: the true story of the love of a young country youth for an older woman of the city, commemorated by the poet in a very long poem (Tbe Crane) from which these excerpts were selected.

- The Cows of Heaven: imaginary objects which, according to the poet, he created and wrote about.

Syrian: poet of Kurdish origin. He lived in Beirut for many years working in journalism and is now associate editor of the prestigious quarterly, AlKarmel, the literary review of the Palestinian Union of Writers. One of the most original poets writing in Arabic today, he has enriched modern Arabic verse with his portrayal of complex human situations, as in his long poem "Diram and Dilana," a story of love between a youth and a mature woman. He has also written about animals, a theme which once flourished in classical Arabic poetry but is now almost extinct, as contemporary Arabic poetry has come to concentrate more on the great upheavals of the human situation in the Arab world today. Barakat has shown courage in using words and expressions which are rare and unfamiliar but semantically apt and esthetically exciting. He has had several collections of poetry published as well as a novel, entitled The Sages of Darkness (1985). In 1981 he published a collection of all his previously published diwans, under the title The Five Collections. Barakat now lives in Nicosia, Cyprus, where Al-Karmel is published.