Seas¹

(To Talal and Haytham)

1.

Seas . . . distant seas,

my spirit was like them

before the water broke my sight,

before the spreading numbness crept into my stride,

before new murmurs slipped into my solitude.

2.

Seas . . . seas . . .

to poetry are distant seas,

far away yet closer than the shores dare say,

deeper than the skies confess,

a wave for every new thing,

a wave for every old.

Poetry is the deepest sea,

distant yet more urgent than surf breaking on rocks.

A balcony

a book and a table.

We came to them

and the waves of poetry washed over us.²

Our papers were carried away by clouds

that rose from the “mothers of poems.”³

We divided them among us

at a table, for vision not study,

and we said: this is the secret of secrets,

this is our quest.

Let us play this game

at our unsteady table.

Seas, distant seas

and this Khalil⁴ who died a thousand years ago

dies and rises,

dies and is buried every day,

but lives again.

Life issues forth

like daily papers.

3.

Seas . . . seas . . .

to poetry is a sea deeper than any other sea,

farther than any other,

yet closer than waves breaking on the rocks.

Seas . . . seas . . .

And on the shores we drown.

This is our age,

a raging ox.

(November 1991)

¹ The word “sea” is a translation of the Arabic word “bahr,” which also means a meter of poetry. “Buhur al-Shi ‘r” (the meters of poetry) were discovered, or rather derived, from Arabic poetry, by al-Khalīl b. Amad al-Farāhīdī.

² “Waves” here is our rendering of the names of meters in the Arabic original: al-baīt (simple), al-awīl (long), and al-khaf īf (light).

³ “Umahāt al-qaā‘d” (the mothers of poems) is an Arabic phrase used to refer to the most beautiful of poems. It often refers to poems by major Pre-Islamic and Abbasid poets. Another similar phrase is “‘Uyūn al-Shi‘r” (the eyes of poetry).

⁴ A reference to al-Khalīl b. Amad mentioned above. The word “khalīl” means friend.