Vacuum
By Adounis Hassan
Translated By Abdellatif Rhesri

Vacuum
Translated By Abdellatif Rhesri

Who has seized the place
And turned Time into heavy mounts ?
Who has implanted the exile with trees
Generating more trees
And thrusted the isolation dagger
Deep into the waist
Of the jasmine and sweet basil ?

Camomile no longer sends
The morn greeting
Has the dew dried out
Or been carried away in the white shroud ?
Has its odour told the oblivion story ?

My bough is no longer useful to me
For its nightingales are lost
And its birds have migrated
Along with the April song

Where is the dove coo
Where is the dove coo
As if the dove had been dumbfounded
By the din of our silence
Or died in our mansions

The light shirt
Is ditched beyond the threshold of absence

The sun has set
Behind the dawn wall
The moon and crescent
Have gone as well

We have turned into
A series of questions
Are we living in a vacuum
Or are we the vacuum itself ;
The vacuum of time
And cowardly place

Morocco
7/7/2009