That Rainy Day طباعة

Saadi Yousef
 
Not because a rainy day is strangely knocking at my window like a thief.
Not because I am dwelling in this watery steppe. Not because the sun has dwelt
In the books of travelers and poets. And not because…
I say: I am burdened by waiting angels; the trees are only trees, while I am looking for shade. The falling rain is not deep water. Through the skein of its pulse
Surge rivers, ships of timber and boats of papyrus. The rain does not reach me.
The rain does not moisten my lips. But the green railings there are shimmering
With watery light. And in the distance flowers and headstones quench their thirst.
No more squirrels or birds. My very pores open to the music.

She was in the balcony. The sun rose in the corner of her garden, a bower for
Grassy tones and dry, rustling leaves. The woman was neither looking nor being looked at. The woman was absent. I, alone, was collecting the fragments of her
Image, her limbs, and the memory of a kiss one day in the corner café.
What planted this green in the blue?
Music. A sun from volcanoes islands. The woman is about moving, about taking a form. Now I glimpse a tress of straight hair, the fullness of a lower lip. Music. The balcony becomes the balcony of a house: a small table, two chairs, a bottle of wine, two glasses and some Spanish peaches. And in the corner a cactus. The woman turns. Now we are two. We shall dwell on the balcony. The sun will come to our glasses. We shall see the moment. Music.

The falling rain is falling.

We are behind the balcony’s glass screen. The room is a bit cold. Her room
Was charged with the smell of paint and the aroma of the Kirghiz carpet. The wetness of the day is sticky beneath my shirt. The woman gave me the ember of her lips. Did she slip the ember under my shirt? I feel like a wanderer in a land of Hot Springs and tores. My breathing is the continuous music of strings. My fingers are the bars. My breathing is the continuous music of strings. The music throbs. I don't see any rain. A crystal light falls across the glass screen.
This falling rain is falling.
Falling…

I feel the hot rain.

Minutes.
Minutes only and I shall make with your love a narrow bed.
Music.

Translated by the author
London, September 2001