“Gladly I Race to My Death”

“How long have I known you?”

“Nine months.”

“That went by fast.”

He opened the door for me, motioned with his head.

“This way.”

I trust him as much as I doubt myself. I acknowledged him and entered. We were in the student lounge where the writers’ group he led was supposed to meet. He came in after me, rubbing his hands in excitement.

“Damn, I’ve waited a long time for this! I can hardly believe it!”

“We’ll have to do something about your language.”

“Sit down.”

We sat down. Modern blue chairs, a low square table made of white glass. A transparent blue vase with yellow artificial flowers that had an IKEA price tag on them. Scattered books and shelves, a television screen showing the news, a Nescafé coffee machine, a carefully folded prayer rug in the corner.

“Are we early?”

“They’re on their way.” He sat to my right, then turned toward me and stared. Just like that. He looked at me as if I was something to look at. As if I were created for him to look at.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m looking at you.”

“Why?”

“‘Looking at a beautiful face is heaven.’”

“You’re crazy.”

“‘Only those who have gone mad know the pleasure of life.’”

“‘Life, as I see it, is a treasure, diminishing each night . . .’”

“That’s okay. ‘Life is nothing but suffering and struggle . . .’”

We laughed.

Lately we’d been talking in poetry. A man and a woman cannot be alone, with them always is poetry. Minutes later the others arrived, a small group of three men and three women who were talking and laughing together when they came in. They were acting with a naturalness that surprised me.

“Hello!”

No one disapproved of anything they saw. No one assumed anything bad.

“So you’re Fatima?”

“Fatima! Finally we meet.”

“Isam won’t shut up about you. You’re all he talks about.”

“He gave us a real headache.”

“‘Fatima said . . . Fatima wrote . . .’”

“‘Fatima can’t come, Fatima agreed to come!’”

“‘Fatima this, Fatima that . . .’”

Then, they all began quoting poetry:

“‘O Fatima, were all the women in the world in one town and you alone in another, I would blindly follow you.’”

“‘O Fatima, enough of this coquetry . . .’”

“‘O Fatima, gladly I race to my death . . .’”

“‘Appear, O Fatima, before death comes . . .’”

“‘O Fatima, you know not the love in my heart nor the tears pouring from my eyes . . .’”

Isam scolded them. “I was trying to teach you something, you blabbermouths.”

“No, you scared us.”

“Sit down, just sit down. It’s not enough to be late, you have to embarrass me in front of her too?”

I smiled, unable to believe it. They were very taken with being poets. I liked them immediately. They were filled with joy, had animated spirits. Like little bunnies, like bubbles.

The discussion began and words were flying everywhere. They expanded with their ideas. A voice rose and another rose over it. The discussion grew heated, and I sat silent, listening, my heart fluttering. There were seven people in this room talking about poetry, my personal definition of bliss.

What is poetry? What are words? Are they a way for us to understand each other or the cause of all misunderstanding? Are they a verbal reflection of things, a symbol signifying things that exist in the world, or are they a way of seeing the world? Are they merely a means for meaning or are they meaning itself? Are they part of the world or do they transcend it? And what about words that have contradictory meanings, conflicting ones, open to endless interpretation? How can something so loaded and packed with meaning be used as a means of communication, and what is the poet supposed to do with them? How can poetry reach us if it isn’t a means of communication? Is poetry the end or the means?

“I want to hear what Fatima has to say,” Isam said.

They went silent and turned toward me.

“About what?” I asked him nervously

“I want to hear from you. How do you deal with words that are concentrated, packed with meaning? How do you treat them in a poem? How do you bring them into submission?”

“I don’t.”

“What do you do then?”

I took a deep breath.