Archive > Vol. 20 no. 2

Saadi Youssef

Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa

Poem Beyond Meaning

1
In Damascus, a girl named Yamam ... 

2
Yamam is the plural of plurals and singular of singulars.
Yamam is every dove at night,
every apple in the day.

3
Night passes, listening to her voice.
He's gripped by longing,
and he sends signals to the distant morning,
to mosques,
and on the features of doves' faces.
Since then
no call to prayer has been heard. 

4
I ask you as a lover of poetry
have you seen a poem more beautiful than Yamam's bed?
Is there poetry more delicious than Yamam while she sleeps?

5
Every time I thought of Yamam
this dialogue filled my head:
I don't know what to do. I absent myself then I yearn, and then I join the beloved and I'm not sated. While together I begin to burn for my yearning, for our being apart again.

6
A woman walks alone and everything goes against her.
She wants to dance,
loves to dance.
Take her into your arms, O fate.

7
O light, O my one and only god,
I know you're hiding in her room now.
Don't let her delve deep into the dream.
My imagination is broken
and the dream too brief. 

8
Outside the window a heavy rain pouring.
The earth drinks its first cup.
Yamam and I have drunk our fiftieth. 

9
Ibn Arabi says:
“Any place that cannot be feminized cannot be relied upon.”
All the places around me become feminine when you arrive. 

10
In Yamam there is a city ... called Damascus.