Page 115 - November 2020
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Litterateur
November 2020
Poems on Kings Highway Jordan under the nocturnal desert sky
The morning breakfast. I had only an omelette and made my way to work, not without
visiting my new friends and came at the right time, when there was Ful Medames
served, boiled brown beans with garlic, lemon juice, cumin and plenty of olive oil and
flatbread - a traditional Arabic breakfast dish. And coffee, strong, with cardamom.
At this evening and the following evening, the encounter repeated.
I was surprised when the Jordanian pulled out a slip of paper and read a poem in
Arabic, the Syrian did the same. Was it Khamriyyah, wine poetry, Tardiyyah, hunt
poetry, Ghazal, a love poem or a Mawaliya, folk poetry in four rhyming lines, the last
one he read out sounded like it.
They gave me a translation:
Oh you, blooming, when I call you, you do not hear me,
When I cry after you, you do not respond
In the Wadi I am looking for you
and find you, Little Flower
The Jordanian wanted to send this poem to his wife:
"In the morning I cannot eat anything because I love you!
At noon I cannot eat anything because I love you!
In the evening I cannot eat anything because I love you!
At night I cannot sleep because I'm hungry
The Syrian mentioned a fellow country man and poet Monzer Masri from Latakia.
Reveries
My coat pockets are my cupboard,
my head is a shooting star.
At her next furiously onrushing rage
I'll forget everything,
not to commit errors.
And in an instant my daydreaming moves me from here,
keeps me in a safe place in a book.
Who would expect under the sky, in a night, in a desert, to hear poetry?
Oh, yes, did not many philosophers come from the desert?
