The Past Of Meaning Poem by Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

The past came at the white dawn
Wearing a soiled hat
And a black dress.
The past came to streets that it knows
As a woman knows her hoopoe
And the place in which she submitted nightingales to death.

The past behind the door, is it …?
Easy as the ladder
When a child attends so excited with death and oblivion?
The past is behind the door
While I am, for ages, wakeful as a broken clock
But the past dare not enter
And I dare not open the door for guests I do not know.

The past sat behind the door
It ate behind the door, slept and woke
At dawn, it thought of nothingness for long
It married and practiced its blue habit.
Behind me is the door, before me is the door.
Behind me is the sense, before me is the sense.
Through the hole in the door
I see him getting up from death
Walking to and fro,
To and fro and talking nonsense.
I arrest myself.

At a white dawn like a knife
I saw the soiled hat and the black dress.
I remembered I was behind the door for countless ages
As broken clocks I remained wakeful,
Catching the past with my palm
I stab him with the knife.
I choke him happily with death's breeze
Happily as the sunbeam
Happily with my moaning
Happily with the blackness of my blood.