As if nothing happened since then.
As if I saw you centuries ago when you were not so small and things so large. As if we had found one another in another life, playing at searching among the exchange markets of intuition. As if one greets the other affectionately, the other to the one also endearingly. As if you were I, and I you, eternally. As if nothing happened, and everything suddenly happens. And as if I applaud from afar. And you point out to me the same game as always. As if nothing happened since then.
As if everything arose from an idea, from a purified, inescapable idea, and you expand, before my dazzling eyes. Now you are not just another story, but here I am with all the enthusiasm of the body, I come to cast a glance from which you hide in the lineage of your root, searching for memories which the earth exalts in the shortcuts of the journey.
Your eyes yearned for ancient adventures, while I feel as if your landscapes will slowly be foreseen, the colourless illusions beneath my blocked and clouded gaze.
You
a secret idea of a secret tree;
a secret tree from a seed of a not-secret idea;
You
an image
elongated
and my tongue
a cord
resting
on
your air
of
signs.
by Abdul Hadi Sadoun
Translated by Lawrence Schimel
From TODOS ESCRIBEN SOBRE EL AMOR MENOS TÚ
by Abdul Hadi Sadoun
Published by Bala Perdida (2018)
Translated by Lawrence Schimel
Poem from his first collection written in Spanish, Todos escriben sobre el amor menos tú (Bala Perdida). Unpublished. Printed by permission of author and translator.
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Abdul Hadi Sadoun is an Iraqi author and translator, born in Baghdad and now living in Madrid. He writes in both Arabic and Spanish, and also translates in both directions. He has edited and translated into Spanish numerous anthologies of Iraqi poetry and has translated into Arabic authors such as Cervantes, Lorca, Borges, Vila-Matas, and Marías.
Lawrence Schimel is a bilingual (Spanish/English) American writer, translator, and anthologist. His work,
which frequently deals with gay and lesbian themes as well as matters of Jewish identity, often falls into the genres of science fiction and fantasy and takes the form of both poetry and prose for adults and for children.