Clouds Poem by Ounsi El Hage

Clouds, O clouds
O sighs of dreamers behind windows
Clouds, O clouds
Teach me the joy of evanescence!
Does a man love in order to mourn or to rejoice, does he embrace in order to end or to begin? I am not asking in order to be answered, but in order to shout in the prisons of knowledge. No man can find relief without prior clouds, nor can he achieve victo

O God, ask me, what do you want to know?
I will tell you:
All the curses are washed away by the miracle of a meeting!
The embers of your eyes, my sweetheart, embrace my devils.
You bring me down to the bottom below water
and you raise me to heights loftier than freedom.
I close my eyes, my life, my moon on you
and so, no dreams can betray me.
O fountain of my inner jungles
O ferocious ewe of my inner wolf,
Who will ever fear for his life when desire's angle is awake, laughing?
No one is born in the world every day.
Only eyes that allure other eyes are daily born!
One look
Only a look
And your eyes carrying the peace of sin will erase the memory of fear,
and the ease of obtaining will be fenced
by the storm of ease!

O milky-white envelope of strength
O visible surface of the sea and concealed countenance of the moon
O soothing reassurance of my drowning
O equalizer of my dream and your movements,
of my disappointment and your wonder
O fragrance of roots controlling the reins of the earth
O little one carrying the burden of compensating for death,
For life and death,
O one veiled by her nakedness
Confused with her fragrance
Whose fragrance is confused with the lost object I seek
O one confused with her shadow
Whose shadow is confused with my body
O one confused with her hair
Whose hait is confused with my wings
O one confused with her playful sauciness
Whose playful sauciness is confused with my freedom
O one confused with her sweetness
Whose sweetness is confused with my avidity
O one confused with her voice
Whose voice is confused with my sleep
O one confused with her dress
Whose dress is confused with my yearning
O one confused with her merriment
Whose merriment is confused with my envy
O one confused with her thighs
Whose thighs are confused with my renewal
O one confused with her silence
Whose silence is confused with my waiting
O one confused with her patience
Whose patience is confused with my country
O one confused with her forms
Whose forms are confused with my soul
O one confused with her half-nakedness
Whose half-nakedness is confused with my hope
With my hope for the continued fervor of love,
O one on whom I close my will and my surrender
You have not said we are strangers
Because u know how many likes of us there are
Among all those who go beyond their eyes' range…

And I fear you!
How can a man love the one who causes his fear?
Who would push out a warm person into the icy cold
Or a person enjoying the cool shade into the midday heat?
Who would cast a little boy out or deprive a suckling babe of his mother's breast?
Why does bad time come
When the breast had not been fully munched?
No man can find relief without prior clouds nor can he achieve victory without prior payment of tribute
Let fate have its wisdom, I will have mine
Let fate have its destiny, I will have my mercy
Nothing has saved us, my sweetheart, but madness
Your net has distracted me from life,
And your amusement has protected me,
The fetters of your hands have bound my heart with song
And the embers of your eyes have embraced my devils

The color of my self is that of the eyes of killed selves,
those destroyed behind a certain door,
behind a certain smile.
It is always a betrayal, an intolerable betrayal
Greater than any loss,
A betrayal that robs you of your life,man,
That robs you of your mother and father
That robs you of your earth and your heaven,
A betrayal greater than your lap, my God,
And no one can do anything!
No one can do anything!

At one time there was nobody.
The air breathed through the branches
And water streamed away and left the world behind it.
Noices and forms were the props pf my dream,
And there was nobody.
There was nobody without wings.
There was no need for disguise, nor for love and killing.
Everybody was there and there was nobody.
Nobody was ferocious.
The mother was above everyone and the child was with his wings.
And like a thunderbolt
Deadly pain annouced it was here,
In my tender inside, and no one could see it.
And it started to hurt, to cut to the quick
Then pile up the soil of my face,
On my eyes
On my amulet-cloud.
Nothing remained of those vineyards
But a memory that I recalled or that recalled me,
At one time i killed and at another I was killed
And evil was either at my back or in my heart!...
I raised my fist in the face of heaven
I cursed at blasphemed
But tell me how could I put an end
To heaven's hell within my ribs?

Nothing has saved us, my sweetheart, but madness
When we jumped at the fresh loss
And met our shadows
And so, our darknesses illuminated us
And our laps became waves for the winds.

A poet is the savage who protects our childhood
A composer is the deaf person who makes us hear
A painter is the blind person who makes us see
A dancer is the rigid person who makes us fly.
Only what can be absent can be present
And only what can cause presence can be absent.
Let me then be absent in the evening's distraction
And so, let the abyss of my eyes swallow me!

What prayer can save?
Every prayer can save!
Desire is the prayer of the soul's blood
Desire is God's face above two unknown persons
And the call of the unknown person is to be given and remain unknown.
Desire is the call of one prey to another prey
The call of one hunter to another hunter
The call of one executioner to another executioner
Desire is the prayer of the soul's blood
Its horse is a winged horse
And its wings
Are the wings of salvation within one's fist.

Clouds, O clouds
On the void I have drawn my rainbow
Our rainbow, O love,
The rainbow of the daily miracle.
Clouds, O clouds
O swaying howdah of the souls
My body walks behind you, woman, it walks in front of you, it disappears within you.
Clouds, O clouds
Bless the cursed man walking unto the very end
Bless me
Teach me the joy of evanescence.

Translated from the arabic by Issa J. Boullata