ADNAN OZER
ISLAS COMORES The sun one of my remote spots. I saw my heart on a map of islands; it did not flow -my God-, just the spectrum and the ladder would suffice to tell that I could not get out of the systems of imagination. I must have walked into the darkness: Into a false crowd, oh poor quiet, I facing the waters have not even touched the ground of the island of my heart. To the islands! to test our courage in a hopeless siege! Until we reach the sun dream! Our dreams will nourish us!Translated by Sehnaz Tahir
FAREWELL TO THE COUNTRY Tears used to have power; we were men loaded with river, following trains of salt; the dream would be revealed by the traces left by water drops in our shadow, as the fetters of salt would come undone in water. We would be ashamed, acquit ourselves of staying too long in the city; we would consult the rain: how do we return home eastward bound? how do we build a lantern out of our bones and fumigate the purple bees of night when they come out of their hive? If the night is barren: stars in our hair and rain once more in the eyes, the lanterns burning like a yellow slice of time (the candle burns, the oil wraps, the mud mummifies the soil), the thorns hurt by the rose are as wounds in the blood... a poor and native rumour behind us... So we used to march out of range like fervent crops. Wheat could become nothing but flour; we were born by women cracking wheat, those sages of crumb painting the sun gold on the stone, our mothers with their cracked soles on roofs facing the moon, our hot vineyard, smiling corn, pious onion shoots; those soles, oh those soles and the way we deserted bricks... Red earth and coarse hay, God's mortar used to offer a yellow intimacy to cool homes with the power of tears; the rain would pass through the windows like a prayer; an orphan would survive on what the earth had to offer... What I mean to say is that, tears used to have power.translated by Sehnaz Tahir