| |
Blood and ink from inkpots have mixed,
That's how the new writings are muddy.
Over dispersed limbs, clothes and pieces
of furniture became hard blankets.
Night wondered if it were moral to hide
such monstrosity, then made its decision:
it will stay suspended high in the sky,
that last possession of the disinherited.
Silence descended and in the absence
of a stairway it fell with all its weight,
like lead.
Some of those who had begun their mortal agony
recognized that silence.
They called their mothers for help
but the women were sleeping in the next room,
their severed heads resting on cushions.
Sohrawardi's handkerchief got stained.
Weeks after the carnage a young man was
trying to learn, from a book, how to
become a builder of cemeteries.
But he never found a piece of real-estate
for the burying of the dead.
He therefore abandoned his studies
and joined an underground organization.
No one knows where he is, or if he is still
with us.* *Extract of the poem “Jenin” by Etel Adnan, May 2002. |
