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I Left My Home & Other Poems— Rahma Nur

Aug 7, 2023 | Poetry | 0 comments

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY PASQUALE VERDICCHIO AND LOREDANA DI MARTINO

I Left my Home Rahma Nur

Image Used For Representation

 

I LEFT MY LAND

I left my land
the soil I paced on my knees
I left faces clouded by oblivion
I left my sparse words there.

Five years, hadn’t seen my mother in two
I left my land for a new beginning
Toward a face I had forgotten
A faded word: mother, Hooyo.

I left my land and an uncertain future.
I left my land
because my feet did not know how to walk it.
My belly full of emptiness,
my heart silent.
I left my land to heal my legs,
they raised me to my feet,
taught me to walk,
taught me another language.

But I have lost the words of my past.

I no longer crawl
Do not dust-up my legs with sand
and all I would like
is to immerse myself in forgotten words
swim among lost fables,
climb stunted acacias,
lose myself in the gazes
that recognize me as one of them.

Laugh at the stories I do not know
dance and sing the rhythms
that ran through my veins
repeat the sheeko sheeko to my daughter

After all, my words stumble like my legs
My songs are out of tune
and my heart cries
a desperate and wordless lament.

COMPOST (2023)
This land
that welcomes everyone:
the living and the dead
those wrapped in a sudarium,
are consumed with days and months,
feed the earth,
their souls observe from on high,
waiting for everything to be used and exhausted.
Yes, they stay there,
waiting mute and floating like clouds, imperturbable.
The living
sink their nails into the earth,
grab her gifts,
cut and destroy,
build walls and unwind barbed wire,
to divide the living without a soul,
from those living in flight, the defenseless, those animated by hope.
The vulnerable, dressed in used clothes, donated food, negated smiles
The ruthless,
warm in their overcoats,
blind, eyes turned only toward themselves
threaten new walls from the stands of power,
dictating without shame,
they bow before the cross and shoot the innocent.
NOSTALGIA (2023)
Talking about the passing years
My friend mocks me and says
That I am still a little flower
I reply that my petals are somewhat wrinkled
And these playful words said with irony and affection
Gather the wrinkles and heaviness of the body
Forgive old sins and craziness
Allow us to laugh at memories as they arise
Cure the painful wounds of abandonment
And make the present serene
After having made peace with the past.

Also, read Four Unpublished Poems by Elizabeth Grech, translated from the Maltese by Irene Mangion, and published in The Antonym:

Four Unpublished Poems— Elizabeth Grech

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