An Evening in Old Sanaa

(To Abdel Aziz al-Maqaleh)

1.

Sanaa has a deep voice,

and we rode the evening

on a high balcony,

nothing above but a few planets,

planets that scattered at the sound of our voices,

at the echoes of what we were about to say.

Were you listening, oh Mosque?

Our words went up

but never came back.

To what then was a listener to listen?

And you, still and silent for hundreds of years,

you see the words we cast into air.

You catch them

and close your impassive eyes.

We sat high above the evening,

on a balcony in the sky,

with our plant awake, visions glowing in it.

We appealed to it to blow the sleep from our blood

and the burning.

We recollect the ruins of the nights

and we restore them

in our warm maqīl.

There is a sublime glow to our gathering

and to Sanaa a sonorous voice.

2.

Sanaa has an ancient face

but it is ours,

when we place our faces in our palms,

we see it and we forbid it to set.

Sanaa has an ancient face,

homes that collapsed into themselves

have struck into the mellowed earth a single root

and stretched, as if they had a single destiny in height.

Homes that tame the mountains,

homes that draw the mountain closer

as if by spell or by calling

homes . . .

Is it fear

that brings them together,

beckoning to each other

in that naked height.

Might they, when crowded,

think themselves safe.

Sanaa has an ancient face

and we who witnessed it,

staring from a balcony in the sky,

were lured by its charm.

We fell together

in sweeping splendor.

Sanaa (5/9/1992)